Business

Memory Lane isn’t always a place of shiny, happy nostalgia. Take for instance the February 2010 debate between President Barack Obama and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who has just been confirmed as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential candidate. Speaking at the health care summit, a direct Ryan told the commander-in-chief: “Look we agree on the problem here and the problem is health inflation is driving us off a fiscal cliff. Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare right now has a $38 trillion unfunded liability…And in September when you spoke to us in the well of the House, you basically said — and I totally agree with this — ‘I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future.’ Since the Congressional Budget Office can’t score your bill because it doesn’t have sufficient detail, but it tracks very similar to the Senate bill, I want to unpack the Senate score a little bit. And if you take a loo...

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More Procured Health, a startup that aims to help hospitals better discover, evaluate and adopt quality medical devices, is today announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from a flock of angels and VCs. Investors in the startup’s first round included Zimmerman Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity Biosciences, NaviMed Capital’s Bijan Salehizadeh, CEO of Bloom Health Abir Sen, Kal Vepuri of Trisiras Group, former Athena Health CFO Carl Byers as well as Athena Health co-founder and CEO Jonathan Bush — to name a few. In a stat that’s both reassuring and anxiety-producing, hospitals spend $125 billion every year on medical supplies. Thankfully, much of that spend is allocated towards devices that will save lives, the problem is that hospitals don’t need to be spending that much money. Pro...

Anthony Ha is a writer at TechCrunch, where he covers media, advertising, and startups. Previously, he was a staff technology writer at Adweek, worked as a senior editor at the tech blog VentureBeat, and was also a reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing.... ? Learn More LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner today addressed the company’s earlier incident of password theft, saying that it doesn’t seem to have an effect on growth. The theft, as well as the flurry of negative publicity, may have caused some members to question the professional social network’s ability to keep their data safe. However, during today’s conference call on the company’s second quarter earnings, Weiner said “the health of our network” remains “as strong as it was prior to the incident.” The company’s growth numbers seem to back that up. LinkedIn added 13 million new members in the past quarter, bringing the total ...

Rip Empson is a writer and rabble-rouser at TechCrunch. He covers startups, music, social, mobile, health, and education. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More As smartphone adoption increases and mobile technology becomes more powerful, it’s changing the way in which people interact with health information. The popularity of health and medical apps has begun to explode, and the amount of health data along with it, much of it thanks to those increasingly wearable and user-friendly gizmos that use smart sensors to capture and transmit all shades of biometric data. Smartphones now tap into these health devices, turning our phones into heart monitors and cancer screeners, all with the goal of helping us live longer, healthier lives. You may not be familiar with them by name, but Azumio is one of a number of young startups tapping into this hot trend, leveraging smart mobile technology to get us making better and more informed health decisions. Thanks to the popular...