Amid Budget Cuts, Are More Hospital Emergency Rooms "Babysitting" The Mentally Ill?

Mental Health: As mental health budget cuts play out across the state, California's emergency rooms increasingly are becoming costly "babysitters" for mentally ill people in crisis, Anna Gorman reports for the Los Angeles Times. In related news: Illinois' decision to limit access to psychiatric drugs for Medicaid patients means that some are no longer able to afford the drugs that keep them stable – potentially winding up in emergency rooms as a result, John Keilman reports for the Chicago Tribune.

Medicare: Fewer seniors are falling into the dreaded "doughnut hole" of Medicare's prescription drug benefit, perhaps because of lower costs for common generic drugs, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study.

Federal Deficit: Doctors, drugmakers, hospitals and health insurers have donated millions of dollars to legislators on the "super-committee" trying to control the federal deficit, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports for the Associated Press.

Nutrition: Fast-food restaurants want to target food stamp recipients as a new source of diners, but public health experts are concerned, Jonathan Ellis and Megan Luther report for USA Today.

Marijuana: A new study suggests that pot-smokers are less likely to be obese than their nonsmoking counterparts. Insert munchie joke here.

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