Seniors: Even though they are being told otherwise, seniors will pay the biggest price for reform.  Half of the reason that Sen. Reid got a favorable cost estimate from CBO is because his bill cuts Medicare by $471 billion over the coming decade.  An earlier report from the program’s chief actuary says cuts this deep would cause many providers to stop seeing Medicare patients or even to close their doors.

Everyone: The federal government would, for the first time, require every American to have health insurance.  The government would stipulate what that mandatory insurance must cover and how much of their incomes people can afford to pay for it, and penalize them if they don’t comply.  While some would be eligible for subsidies or waivers, most Americans would face tax penalties of $750 a year or 2 percent of their incomes, whichever is higher, to force compliance.

Young people: Most haven’t a clue that the federal government is about to slap them with a new mandate requiring them to purchase expensive health insurance.  Studies show that they would likely pay premiums two or three times the amount they would normally be charged based upon their age and expected use of health services.

You can keep reading here.

. . . on Page 122 of the 2,079-page bill, the secretary [of Health and Human Services] is given the power to establish “the basic per enrollee, per month cost, determined on average actuarial basis, for including coverage under a qualified health care plan.”

The HHS secretary would also have the power to decide where abortion is allowed under a government-run plan, which has drawn opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats.

And the bill even empowers the department to establish a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation that would have the authority to make cost-saving cuts without having to get the approval of Congress first.

“It’s a huge amount of power being shifted to HHS, and much of it is highly discretionary,” said Edmund Haislmaier, an expert in health care policy and insurance markets at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Women can delay having their first Pap test for cervical cancer until they turn 21 and many can wait longer to go back for follow-up screenings, according to new guidelines released Friday by a major medical group.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommended the change after concluding that more frequent testing did not catch significantly more cancers and often resulted in girls and young women experiencing unnecessary stress, anxiety and sometimes harmful treatments because of suspicious growths that would not cause problems.

“We really felt that the downsides of more frequent screening outweighed any benefits,” said Alan G. Waxman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico who led the revision of the guidelines. “More testing is not always more intelligent testing.”

The change comes amid sharp controversy over new recommendations from a federal task force that women wait until age 50 before they begin having routine mammograms and that women age 50 to 74 scale back to getting the exams routinely every two years.

Here’s some shocking poll stats from Investors Business Daily:

Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.

The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors’ own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.

It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration’s claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part.

You can read the rest of the story here.

Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO, and the president plans to give lawmakers a more specific prescription for health care legislation than he has in the past, aides said. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said. . .

Top officials privately concede the past six weeks have taken their toll on Obama’s popularity. But the officials also see the new diminished expectations as an opportunity to prove their critics wrong by signing a health care law, showing progress in Afghanistan, and using this month’s anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers to push for a crackdown on Wall Street.

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

“We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an aide said. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey show that 43% of voters nationwide favor the plan working its way through Congress while 53% are opposed. Those figures are virtually identical to results from two weeks ago.

As has been true since the debate began, those opposed to the congressional overhaul feel more strongly about the legislation than supporters. Forty-three percent (43%) now Strongly Oppose the legislation while 23% Strongly Favor it. Those figures, too, are similar to results from earlier in August.