Yahoo's free mail service to offer 1GB of storage

Yahoo Inc. will increase the inbox capacity of its free Web mail service for the third time in the past 9 months, now raising storage to 1GB, exceeding Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail and matching Google Inc.'s Gmail.

Senate Approves Mental Health Parity Bill

The Oregon Senate voted today to require insurance companies to cover mental health treatment on par with physical care. Current law allows insurers to place limits on mental health coverage.

Senate Bill One passed after more than an hour of debate and a failed attempt to attach to it a seven-year moratorium on health insurance mandates.

Cotton Tribute

Al McCoy, the radio voice of the Phoenix Suns, talks with former Suns All Star Charles Barkley with Dan Majerle looking on at the Cotton Fitzsimmons Ring of Honor induction ceremony. Cotton was a beloved coach for the Suns who passed away in July.

Cotton

Leave Alaska Alone

Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.

Committee Approves Mental Health Parity Bill

A committee in Salem voted in favor of a bill Wednesday to require insurance companies to cover mental illnesses to the same degree they cover physical ailments. State lawmakers in Olympia approved a similar measure last month. The bill has a good chance of passing in Oregon, too.

Senate passes mental health reform bill, with major price tag

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The state Senate on Thursday passed an ambitious and expensive bill to reform the mental health care system in Washington state.

The bill does many different things. First and foremost, it integrates screening and treatment for mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction, because the problems often occur together.

The bill would also allow county governments to levy a one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax to pay for new and expanded mental health and chemical dependency services.

The bill goes to the state House now. The mental health bill is Senate Bill 5763.

Episode III

Anyone else excited about the new Star Wars trailer? I just saw it and I think this one will bring back disappointed fans. Fingers crossed for no Jar Jar.

Feds hit on mental health help for kids

Kevin Freking
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Critical mental health services for children are threatened because the federal government misinterprets Medicaid law, one Democrat and one Republican said Tuesday.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said state Medicaid programs were audited on the premise that the federal government is not permitted to fund the medical care of children in mental institutions. As a result, California, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Virginia have been asked to repay more than $10 million, the lawmakers said.

"Because the loss of these funds could threaten the viability of institutions that provide critical mental health services, these audits are a direct threat to the health of needy children," the pair said in a letter to Mark McClellan, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Dan Levinson, the acting inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.

They contend that nothing in the law prevents the government from paying for care for these children. In fact, they said Congress in 1972 carved out an exemption that allows Medicaid payments for children's "inpatient psychiatric hospital services."

Sen. Collins is chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, and Waxman is the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.

Mary Kahn, a CMS spokeswoman, said, "We're looking into the situation."

Samsung Elec Unveils 7-Megapixel Camera Phone

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. unveiled the world's first mobile phone with a powerful 7-megapixel camera on Wednesday, providing a potential competitive threat to manufacturers of digital cameras.

White House Admits 1st Blogger to Briefing

AP - With an official credential hanging from his neck, a young man stepped into the White House briefing room Monday as perhaps the first blogger to cover the daily press briefings. He found the surroundings to be dilapidated and cramped and concluded that his morning at the White House was "remarkably uneventful."

Viruses!? On a Microsoft product? Noooo....

New IM Worms Target MSN Messenger Users (PC World)
Attacks on your PC through instant messaging viruses pick up steam.

More St. Helens

Plume from the Sugar Bowl DomeCam Remote Camera taken at at 5:27:42 P.M. PST.

Plume from Mount St. Helens, as seen from the Cascade Volcano Observatory Office roof, taken approximately at 5:30 PM, PST. Plume is drifting east-northeast after reaching approximately 36,000 feet above sea level.
USGS Photograph taken at approximately 5:30 PM PST on March 8, 2005, by Matt Logan.

Federal Budget cuts Medicaid Mental Health

Mental health advocates in Washington state are worried. Thousands of people across that state will lose mental health services July 1 unless the Legislature comes up with $82 million to restore federal Medicaid cuts. A newspaper story reports that hundreds of mentally ill people have already been turned away from community services. The state is facing a $2.2 billion shortfall over the next two-years, so the money is not there to make up the difference. The federal cut will vaporize 20 percent of Washington's community mental health budget.

For years, Washington state exploited an ambiguity in federal law that allowed the state to use the savings from its Medicaid managed care program to pay for non-Medicaid people and services.

Other states did the same, but Washington did it particularly well. Medicaid, the joint federal and state health program for poor children and adults, accounts for 89 percent of the state’s community mental health budget. The national average is 38 percent.

A 1997 federal law says states can use Medicaid money for only Medicaid patients and services. The federal government let the states slide for a while, but cracked down last year.

Suit filed to stop Calif. stem cell institute

usatoday.com - A politically conservative public interest group filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to invalidate the $3 billion stem cell research funding institution California voters approved in November.

U.N. panel backs anti-cloning resolution

usatoday.com - A bitterly divided U.N. committee approved a resolution calling on nations to ban all forms of human cloning incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.

Is there anyone out there?

usatoday.com - Images relayed by a European space probe reveal the existence of a sea of ice close to the equator of Mars, scientists said last week at a conference in the Netherlands. The existence of water or ice would significantly increase the chance that microscopic life may also be found on Mars.

Sony builds pizza-order function into 'Everquest II'

usatoday.com - Demonstrating a deep understanding of what will appeal to its computer-gaming audience, Sony has built a pizza-ordering command into its most popular online multiplayer game, with promises of more cross-universe branding to come.

TiVo shares surge on speculation of Apple buyout

usatoday.com - Shares of TiVo surged last week because of Internet speculation that Apple Computer may be planning a bid to buy the company that popularized digital-video recording of television shows. Spokesmen for TiVo and Apple declined to comment.

Bank of America says tapes with customer data lost

usatoday.com - Bank of America has lost computer data tapes containing personal information on 1.2 million federal employees, including some members of the U.S. Senate. The lost data includes social security numbers and information that could make customers of a federal government charge card program vulnerable to identity theft.
Oops.

'Star Wars' trailer to premiere March 10

usatoday.com - Darth Vader is coming to The O.C.
The trailer for Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith will premiere during the March 10 episode of the Fox show.
The final installment of the Star Wars saga will open in theaters on May 19. The new trailer will be released in movie theaters beginning March 11.
The O.C. airs Thursdays (8 p.m. ET).

Medicare Drug Benefit Changes Worry Advocates

Professionals who care for the estimated 6.3 million Americans who are eligible for both the federal Medicare and federal-state Medicaid health programs say patients could face significant disruption -- and potential ill effects -- when their drug coverage is switched from one program to the other at the end of this year.

Currently, Medicaid pays for the drug needs of the population known as "dual eligibles." But starting Jan. 1, 2006, all of those individuals will have to be enrolled in new drug plans under the Medicare program.

"I don't know how Oregon will successfully do this in this timeframe," Dr. Tina Kitchin, Medical Director of Oregon's Department of Human Services, told the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Dr. Carl Clark, CEO of the Mental Health Center of Denver in Colorado, said that even a brief interruption in medications can cause serious problems.

For mentally ill patients, he said, "a very large percentage of patients forced to switch medications will fail. Typically, this means rapid de-compensation into psychiatric crisis." And those patients who fail to successfully make the transition, he said, "could end up destitute, homeless, or in state prison."

Hear your iTunes music anywhere with accessTunes

Bains Software on Thursday released accessTunes, billed as "always-on music sharing via iTunes and the Web." The software enables you to start sharing your iTunes Music Library as soon as you turn on your computer, and makes the music available on the local network through iTunes, or from anywhere on the internet via a Web interface.

Mental-health parity bill passes : Washington

Health insurers will have to treat mental illness the same as physical illness, under a bill the state Senate passed yesterday. The Senate passed the mental-health parity bill with a surprisingly strong vote of 40-9. It already had cleared the House, so now goes to Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, who has said she will sign it into law. The bill requires insurers to offer the same level of coverage for mental health as they do for physical. For example, if the co-payment for a cholesterol drug is $10, the co-payment for anti-depressants would be $10. Supporters estimate the bill will affect about 900,000 statewide whose insurance plans don't cover mental illness or do so at a lower level than physical illness.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES