Election Outcome Could Upend Medicaid, Transgender Care Policies
Republicans envision slashing Medicaid funding, making it harder for low-income Americans to get the care they need. They also have designs on giving the federal government — not states — say over transgender care.
Stateline:
Election Results Could Mean Major Changes In Medicaid
A decade ago, an old work injury put Fred Blackman II in the hospital with a slipped spinal disc that threatened to paralyze him. ... After discharge, he returned to a life he didn’t recognize. He’d lost his job at an insurance company, his health coverage and his house, and his marriage was falling apart. He could barely walk and owed more than $500,000 in medical bills. He got emergency Medicaid coverage with the hospital’s help, but it lapsed after a few months. (Krisberg, Public Health Watch, 11/1)
Roll Call:
Election Could Move Fight Over Trans Care From States To DC
While the legislative fight over transgender care has been largely limited to states to date, a spate of campaign ads from Republicans and worried trans advocates both indicate that could change if Republicans take control of Congress and the White House. (Cohen, 11/1)
Iowa Public Radio:
Iowans With Disabilities And Advocates Seek To Close Voter Participation Gap
After years of voting in person, Bettina Dolinsek voted at her home in Ankeny this fall for the first time ever. “It was easier, time convenient for us to just do it here at home,” she said. “So I thought we’d try it.” She needed some help to do that, though. Dolinsek is blind, and so is her husband. Because Iowa’s absentee ballots are on paper, she and her husband were not able to read and mark the ballots themselves. (Sostaric, 11/1)
The Washington Post:
Montana Senate Candidate Tim Sheehy Says Gunshot Medical Records Don’t Exist
Tim Sheehy, the Montana Republican nominee for Senate, said in an interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that there are no medical records that would prove he did not accidentally shoot himself in the arm in Glacier National Park in 2015. Sheehy is facing a fresh round of scrutiny about a bullet wound in his arm, which he has told voters he sustained while serving as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan in 2012. But in 2015, he told a park ranger he accidentally inflicted the wound upon himself when he dropped his weapon in a parking lot in Glacier National Park and it fired into his arm. (Goodwin, 11/3)
KFF Health News:
No Evidence Trump’s Drug Program For Terminal Patients Saved ‘Thousands’ Of Lives
Former President Donald Trump has boasted in recent months about “Right To Try,” a law he signed in 2018. It’s aimed at boosting terminally ill patients’ access to potentially lifesaving medications not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. “We have things to fight off diseases that will not be approved for another five or six years that people that are very sick, terminally ill, should be able to use. But there was no mechanism for doing it,” Trump said Aug. 30, speaking in Washington, D.C., to supporters of the conservative parental rights advocacy group Moms for Liberty. (Gardenswartz, 11/4)
Also —
Politico:
Harris Votes By Mail, Avoids Weighing In On Prop 36
Kamala Harris told reporters Sunday that she cast her vote, sending a mail ballot to her home state of California. She also avoided answering a question about whether she voted for the state’s Proposition 36, a high-profile ballot measure that would increase penalties for some theft- and drug-related crimes. The vice president, speaking to reporters after attending service and delivering remarks at the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ in Detroit, also answered questions on Gaza and how her campaign would respond if Donald Trump declares an early victory on Tuesday — making no news. (Ward, 11/3)
