Today we honor our service members who died for our Country. While many of my forebearers served, it was the son of one of the FEHBlog’s first cousins, Army Capt. Eric T. Paliwoda, who died in combat. Next January 2 will mark the 20th anniversary of his death in Iraq. Rest in peace. Never forget.

The Senate is in session this week for floor voting and Committee business, while the House of Representatives, which had planned to take a District work break, will resume floor voting and hold a Rules Committee meeting tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal reports

• “The path to a tentative agreement to raise the debt limit started in January with the election of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on the 15th ballot, after he made conservatives a host of promises to cut spending and gave them the ability to oust him if he wavered.
• “It ended with President Biden caving from his pledge not to negotiate and the two sides crafting an accord that neither the right nor left wanted, which places new limits on spending for two years and raises the nation’s borrowing limit for the same period. 
• “The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want,” Biden said. “That’s the responsibility of governing.” McCarthy called the deal an “agreement in principle” and warned: “We still have a lot of work to do.”

The agreement has been reduced to legislative language that the House of Representatives will consider on Wednesday. Roll Call describes the deal in English. The Senate is expected to take up the bill on Friday if all goes well. The FEHBlog at least expects it will.

From the miscellany department —

• Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a rule to improve prescription drug price transparency in Medicaid.

• The Wall Street Journal explains why “Early detection of dementia can help people make important decisions and weigh possible treatments. But getting a diagnosis can be difficult.”
  • “Getting an early and correct diagnosis for dementia gives those with the condition time to make financial and legal plans while they still can. A timely diagnosis could become even more important with new drugs, such as Biogenand Eisai’s Leqembi and Eli Lilly’s donanemab that help slow decline in early stages of Alzheimer’s. The drugs wouldn’t be used to treat frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, but they hold promise for future treatments across a broader spectrum of dementia.” * * *
  • “Yet, dementia remains difficult to diagnose. About half of those affected go undiagnosed, according to studies on dementia diagnosis and prevalence. 
  • “Doctors who specialize in dementia cite several reasons for high undiagnosed rates, including a shortage of specialists such as cognitive neurologists, geriatric psychiatrists and gerontologists, and limited access to tests, including certain PET scans that help reveal specific abnormalities in the brain but may not be covered by insurance. Blood tests to detect Alzheimer’s risk aren’t widely used.  
  • “Many individuals, family members and primary-care doctors are reluctant to talk about dementia because they are afraid, embarrassed or think nothing can be done. Early symptoms are often attributed to stress, lack of sleep and forgetfulness.”

• NPR Shots reports on the “intriguing” results of a study of multivitamin use by older Americans.

• Fortune Well tells us
  • Symptoms of prostate cancer [the second deadliest cancer in the U.S.] can vary widely, and some patients don’t show symptoms at all, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The following symptoms, however, may be telltale signs:
    • Difficulty beginning to urinate
    • Weak urine flow, or interrupted flow
    • Frequent urination
    • Trouble fully emptying bladder
    • Pain or burning while urinating
    • Blood or semen in urine
    • Back, hip, and/or pelvis pain that doesn’t go away
    • Painful ejaculation
  • Patients diagnosed in early stages of the condition can have a “high expectation of cure,” Knudsen says, and “can continue to have a wonderful quality of life.” In fact, the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer detected early is virtually 100%, Siddiqui says.
  • The outlook for late-diagnosed patients, however, is not nearly as rosy. There is no “durable cure” for such cancer, Knudsen points out. The five-year survival rate for advanced prostate cancer is only 31%, according to Siddiqui.
  • When it comes to prostate cancer prevention, “what’s good for your heart is good for your prostate,” Oh advises. He encourages men to pack their diets full of leafy green veggies and colorful fruits, and to limit dairy and barbecued meat, which are associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer and aggressive prostate cancer.