Albany, NY, Apr 11, 2012 — A new poll finds New Yorkers have mixed feelings about President Obama's health care reform act, with a plurality saying they'd like to see the Supreme Court declare parts of the law unconstitutional.  Go to full article

Albany, NY, Mar 23, 2012 — As part of the federal health care act backed by President Obama, approved by Congress and before the U.S. Supreme Court next week, states are required to set up health insurance "exchanges." This creates the health care plans that will be available to the uninsured, who will be required to purchase them when the act is fully implemented.

Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to set up New York's exchange as part of the state budget agreement. But Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos says there's too much uncertainty to create now. Karen DeWitt reports from Albany.  Go to full article

Albany, NY, Mar 08, 2012 — The Cuomo Administration is cracking down on insurance companies and health care providers who stick patients with unexpected out of network service bills. In Albany, Karen DeWitt reports.  Go to full article

Ogdensburg, NY, Feb 28, 2012 — After the long recession, most pundits expected the 2012 political campaign to revolve around economic issues.

But politicians on the right and left have instead been reviving some surprising social questions, ranging from contraception to prenatal testing to the role of religion in politics and public life.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, argued that opposition to insurance coverage for those services amounts to "an attack on women."

"Many of us are outraged, really outraged," Sen. Gillibrand told the magazine. "In the year 2012, we should not be debating access to birth control. No boss should be making a decision about what health care their employees should be eligible to take."

Polls show that the vast majority of American families use contraception and think contraception should be widely available. Surveys also suggest that a smaller majority of Americans think religious groups should provide full insurance benefits to employees.

But Bishop Terry Lavalley, who heads the Diocese of Ogdensburg, sees this very differently.

He argues that Federal changes to healthcare laws proposed by the Obama administration threaten the religious freedom of groups like the Roman Catholic Church.

Bishop LaValley met recently with Brian Mann to talk about the Church's prominent role in this year's political campaign and about the difficulties of teaching Catholic doctrine in an age when even many Roman Catholics are making very different moral choices.  Go to full article

Potsdam, NY, Jan 25, 2012 — Did you make a New Year's resolution to lose weight or get more exercise? Some local small businesses are doing their part to help their employees stay healthy at the workplace. Wellness programs are not new. They've been staples at large companies for years, but are less likely to be used at small businesses. That's changing.

Amid soaring health spending, there is growing interest in workplace disease prevention and wellness programs to improve health and lower costs. Eager to control rising health care costs, small firms in St. Lawrence County are turning to a health experts for help. Todd Moe has more.  Go to full article

Aug 04, 2011 — Dozens of swimmers will gather in Hannawa Falls for the annual "Swim a Mile for Hospice" event on Saturday. It's a non-competitive mile long swim to benefit the work hospice does in the St. Lawrence Valley. Last summer, 67 swimmers young and old took to the water at Postwood Park Beach. Todd Moe caught up with members of Team Cobb -- a father-daughter swim team -- just before a recent practice swim in the pool at St. Lawrence University. They swam last year and will be back in the water on Saturday.  Go to full article

Aug 02, 2011 — Essex County supervisors are wrestling once again with the future of the Horace Nye Nursing Home.

At a meeting yesterday in Elizabethtown, the supervisors tabled a move to try to privatize the county-run home, which currently has about a hundred residents.

As Brian Mann reports, Horace Nye is seen by many county leaders as a valuable program, one that helps some of the region's neediest and most vulnerable people.

But they say the state property tax cap approved this summer is making it harder and harder to pay for the nursing home's mounting losses.  Go to full article

Albany, NY, May 05, 2011 — The State Senate held a panel discussion with major health care stakeholders, on how New York will implement the federal health care reforms proposed by President Obama and passed by Congress. In Albany, Karen DeWitt filed this report:  Go to full article

Plattsburgh, NY, Apr 25, 2011 — Religious groups that oppose legalized abortion staged their annual protest rally in Plattsburgh on Friday.

They sang hymns, prayed and marched outside the clinic operated by Planned Parenthood. Martha Foley has details.  Go to full article

Plattsburgh, NY, Apr 25, 2011 — Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures performed in America. Women in New York state choose to terminate roughly a third of all pregnancies.

But the debate over abortion has raged ever since the practice was legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973.

Kathie Wunderlich is president of Planned Parenthood of the North Country, which operates eight clinics across the region.

Last week as the Good Friday protests were getting underway, she spoke in-depth with Brian Mann.

We asked Wunderlich to respond to a claim by Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who said that more than ninety percent of Planned Parenthood's medical services involve abortions.  Go to full article