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Unless Congress acts, the federal COBRA subsidy to help laid-off workers pay for health insurance will expire May 31, and on Feb. 28 new applicants won't have access to the subsidies, according to the Kansas City Star.

President Obama highlights the unsustainable rate of growth of healthcare spending and renews a call for healthcare reform proposals that stalled late last year in his Economic Report of the President to Congress, released Feb. 11.

The city council in McAlester, Okla., voted to call a special election to allow voters to determine whether McAlester Regional Health Center Authority should purchase a physicians' center and ASC on the hospital campus, according to the McAlester News-Capital.

The Minnesota Attorney General is suing two Texas-based companies that sell discount health insurance cards, claiming they used deceptive marketing practices, according to a release from the Attorney General.

The former operations chief of a psychiatric hospital in Lemont, Ill. received a 15-month prison sentence for his role in a Medicaid kickback scheme, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

ASCs outperform hospitals in offering patients easy access to pricing information, estimating costs, offering discounts and providing the best value for surgery, according to a research paper from the Healthcare Blue Book.

Following a two-hour meeting with Congressional Republicans, President Obama held a news conference in which he laid out the kind of reforms he would consider, according to a transcript from the White House.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to include a 3 percent tax on physicians' gross receipts as part of her budget proposal to the state legislature, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Economic and generational shifts have resulted in many experts predicting changes in how orthopedic and spine services are run in hospitals. Here are four trends in how hospitals and ASCs operate orthopedics and spine lines.

Chicago-based NovaMed, a leading operator of ambulatory surgery centers in partnership with physicians, reported total net revenue growth to $39.8 million for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009, up 10 percent from $36.2 million in the prior year fourth…