WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A05
Waxman Vows Probe Of Alleged Profiteering
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) pledged yesterday that Congress will investigate a range of allegations of drug-company profiteering through overcharging federal health programs.
"If even half of them are true, billions of federal dollars that should be buying needed care are instead adding to drug company profits," Waxman said as he opened a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on alleged fraud and abuse in drug pricing.
Democrats promised more aggressive oversight of government practices when they took control of Congress in January, and the hearing was an initial effort to apply such scrutiny to spiraling health-care costs.
Waxman, the committee's chairman, cited allegations that Medicaid, which covers about 50 million low-income Americans and spent about $30 billion on drugs in 2005, has been "repeatedly overcharged for essential medications."
Sen. Johnson Shows Progress, Begins Work
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) is reading news clippings and starting to do some office work from the hospital, almost two months after suffering a life-threatening brain hemorrhage Dec. 13.
"We do not anticipate him back [in the Senate] for several weeks," spokeswoman Julianne Fisher said. "We are bringing work to him rather than him coming to us. His first priority still is rehabilitation."
Johnson has been undergoing physical, occupational and speech therapy since he was transferred to rehabilitation from intensive care at George Washington University Hospital last month. He recently began to read and speak in full sentences, his doctors said.
Honduran Envoy Dies In Pa. Turnpike Crash
A Honduran diplomat at the country's Washington embassy was killed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike when the car she was riding in was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer driven by an illegal immigrant, state police said.
Nuria Ortiz Navarro, 31, a trade and investment promotion counselor for the Honduran Embassy, was pronounced dead Thursday at the scene of the collision, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Her husband, Pablo Octavio Miranda Nigro, 33, was injured in the wreck, police said.
The driver of the rig, Sam P. Thompson, 32, who lives in Gaithersburg, is in the country illegally from Ghana, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said. Thompson's employer, Transcare Systems Inc. of Bowie, declined to comment.
-- From News Services
