President George Bush is pushing his health care proposal that would help provide coverage for the 46 million Americans who do not have any

It is being reported that George Bush has vowed to do whatever is necessary to bring health insurance to those Americans who do not have any. Over 46 million Americans are currently without health insurance, a fact that the US President says is unacceptible.

"From my conversations with Democrats and Republicans, it is clear both parties recognize that strengthening health care for all Americans is one of our most important responsibilities," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "I am confident that if we put politics aside, we can find practical ways to improve our private health care system."

Under Bush's proposed plan, health insurance costs would classify as taxible income: "Today, the tax code unfairly penalizes people who do not get health insurance through their job," stated Bush.

"If you buy health insurance on your own, you pay much more after taxes than if you get it through your job," he said. "I proposed to end this unfair bias in the tax code by creating a standard tax deduction for every American who has health insurance, whether they get it through their job or on their own."

Bush is also proposing a $7000 tax deductible for individuals, and a $15000 tax deductible for families.

"Americans deserve a level playing field," Bush said. "If you're self-employed, a farmer, a rancher or an employee at a small business who buys health insurance
on your own, you should get the same tax advantage as those who get their health insurance through their job at a big business."

A major component to his proposal is taking money that is used to help hospitals cover the costs for the uninsured, and use it to allow individual states to set up programs to assist residents to get health coverage and assist those with high-cost health conditions.

Half-ton man gets to leave house at last

A man who once weighed well over half a ton left his house for the first time in five years Wednesday -- wheeled outside on his bed to greet neighbors and see a mariachi band."The sky is beautiful and blue, and what I want is to enjoy the sun," said Manuel Uribe, who had once been certified by doctors as weighing 1,235 pounds.Though still unable to leave his bed, Uribe has lost 395 pounds since he began a high-protein diet a year ago. He now weighs about 840 pounds.To celebrate the milestone, six people pushed Uribe's wheel-equipped iron bed out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered. Then, a forklift lifted him onto a truck and the 41-year-old rode through the streets of San Nicolas de los Garza, a Monterrey suburb.With dozens of reporters and photographers in tow, Uribe traveled along, passing the town's plaza and church and waving at clusters of people eager to get a glimpse of him."It fills me with joy to see he's getting better and getting a little sun," Uribe's neighbor Guadalupe Guerra said. "I would go crazy if I had to be inside my house for so many years."Uribe was a chubby kid and weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent. In 1992, when he was 26, his weight began ballooning further, he said.Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him.He drew worldwide attention in January 2006 when he pleaded for help on national television. Afterward, an Italian and a Spanish doctor both visited and offered gastric bypass surgery.But Uribe chose to accept help from Mexican nutritionists working with the Zone diet. He says he will stick to that diet until he reaches his goal of 265 pounds."My goal is to leave the house on my own but I know that will be a long process," he said. Doctors say it may take three to four years for Uribe to reach his goal.Uribe said he plans to start a foundation to help overweight people get medical assistance and teach them about healthful eating habits.

IT and e-health is 'every nurse's business'

IT and e-health is every nurse’s business because it has to be integrated into practice, nursing leader, June Clark, said on the eve of a major discussion at the Royal College of Nursing’s annual congress this week.

The discussion on the theme “Computerised records – what can they offer?” will be available online at the College website. Professor Clark, a former president of the college and chair of the RCN Information in Nursing Forum, told E-Health Insider she hoped as many people as possible in the e-health community would get involved.

She hopes the session will raise awareness on several fronts: “The first is awareness among nurses that e-health and IT and the introduction of IT into the NHS is every nurses’ business because it has to be integrated into nursing practice,” she said.

“The other awareness that I want to get across to this audience and more generally that electronic patient records must have appropriate nursing content, not just medical content.”

Nursing content, she said, included pre-existing nursing diagnoses for the patient and records of interventions and outcomes. In the case of a patient with diabetes, for example, the electronic record would need to chart progress in teaching the person how to self-administer insulin and manage the condition generally – not just offer lists of blood glucose readings.

“Teaching patients how to manage their lives with diabetes doesn’t show [at present]. The electronic patient record (EPR) makes it possible – in theory at least – to do that at an individual and aggregated level,” she said.

“What EPRs would be able to show is how the outcome differs according to who did the intervention and indeed there’s good research from other countries that shows when you dilute the [nursing] skillmix patient outcomes change.”

She pointed particularly to the work of George Evers in Belgium and Linda Aiken in the US as demonstrating the effect of increasing or decreasing the levels of professional nursing.

Professor Clark said there was a need to invest in education for nurses now on such issues if the systems were going to produce the right information.

“The reason I’m pushing now is that we won’t ever get it right in the future unless the right decisions are made now and the education programmes are started now,” she said.