The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., issued its long-awaited Americas Healthy Future Act of 2009 on Wednesday, which would cost $856 billion over 10 years, and is scheduled to begin committee action on Sept. 22.

Developments in imaging technology and software continue to help cardiac MRI exams gain prominence in the medical imaging market and will drive global sales of the technology to a projected $605 million in 2012, according to a report by healthcare market research firm Kalorama Information.

A difference in brain activity patterns may explain why some people are able to maintain a significant weight loss while others regain the weight, according to a functional MRI (fMRI) study published last month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

A study in today's online edition of the American Journal of Public Health has found that nearly 45,000 deaths annually are associated with a lack of health insurance.

MRI can help monitor carotid vessel wall volume changes over time and identify factors that contribute to changes, according to a study in this months issue of Radiology. In addition, researchers found that patients not receiving statin therapy had a faster increase in vessel wall volume changes.

Physicians are now able to see radiology imagesincluding x-rays, MRI, CT and ultrasoundfrom six radiology centers in the Rochester, N.Y., area through the Rochester RHIO, the communitys regional health information organization, with the assistance of eHealth Global Technologies (eHGT).

Between 2007 and 2008, the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased from 202 million to 201 million, while the number covered by government health insurance climbed from 83 million to 87.4 million, according to statistics released yesterday through the U.S. Census Bureau.

Siemens Healthcare has released new MR breast imaging software.