Pretty Major Proposal

Health Care Programs Face Cuts in Bush Budget

The Bush Administration released its $2.9 trillion spending plan this week calling for Medicare and Medicaid cuts totaling nearly $100 billion over the next 5 years. The cuts would reduce payments to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and other providers; reduce the hospital market basket; and freeze home health payments through 2012. Additional details are expected during congressional hearings. Complicating the spending outlook further are the recently passed House measures requiring "pay-as-you-go" for any additional spending. Democrats immediately criticized the Bush budget, making passage of a budget resolution similar to the Administration proposal unlikely.

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It's issues like these that you as a student/patient/professional can contact your congressman about and let them know you do not agree with this. I hate getting too political... so I won't say another word on the matter... :-D

Here are some lighter pieces of news...
Patrice Winter, PT, MPT, MS, FAAOMPT, was featured in a Fox 5 interview during the 5 pm newscast on Monday about how wearing baggy pants affects the way the wearer walks, which can throw off hip alignment and cause pain. "Some muscles are working harder, and some not hard enough…" says Winter.

Marika Hartog, PT, one of the New York City Ballet's nine physical therapists, was part of a team featured in a Washington Post article about their work in helping young dancers avoid injury during the ballet company's Injury Prevention for Adolescent Dancers program recently held at the Washington School of Ballet. "During adolescence your body goes through many changes: Your head size doubles, your trunk size triples, your arm size quadruples, your leg size quintuples," Hartog says. "Young dancers are going through these really big changes physiologically as well as hormonally, and they're psychologically maturing. It's a dramatic time in a child's life."