Latest KFF Health News Stories
Media outlets report on news from Virginia, Florida, Maryland, California, New York, Arizona, North Carolina, District Of Columbia, Minnesota, Colorado, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
Opinion writers weigh in on these health care topics and others.
Longer Looks: Health Care For The Undocumented; Health Care Drones; And The Heidi Group
Each week, KHN’s Shefali Luthra finds interesting reads from around the Web.
The preliminary sign-off by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson is not expected to conclude USC’s payouts to female students and alumnae. More than 720 women are pursuing separate claims against the university in state court, and their lawyers have criticized the class-action agreement as paltry.
Oklahoma Advocates Launch Campaign To Get Medicaid Expansion On The Ballot
The coalition will need to collect nearly 178,000 voter signatures to put the issue on the November 2020 ballot. “We’re normal, everyday Oklahomans that care about this issue and we’re growing every day,” said Oklahomans Decide Healthcare spokeswoman Amber England. Medicaid news comes out of Louisiana and Ohio, as well.
The safety rating for the hormone shot Depo-Provera was lowered several years ago, frustrating women in Africa who found it an easier method to hide and sometimes the only option offered. In other news on HIV: a new documentary and harmful syringe practices.
Finding participants for research can be difficult, but it was relatively easy to find a large pool of people from across the country, the developers said, adding it’s private, as well. Facebook doesn’t have access to the data. New reports on public health news are on enteroviruses, time outdoors, insomnia, visual impairment, depression, Roundup and more.
Some officials had been facing charges as serious as involuntary manslaughter in the case over the water contamination crisis that crippled the city of Flint, Michigan. The prosecutors say that the initial investigation was bungled and it is opting to launch a new but expanded probe. But the decision was a blow to residents who were already suspicious of the government.
Lawmakers previously argued a program to develop a national patient identifier could violate privacy issues or raise security concerns, while the medical community and insurers claimed the ban kept them from properly matching patients with the correct medical information–a major issue that health systems are struggling with.
The transplants have come into increasing use to treat severe intestinal orders and sometimes work quickly in patients wasting away. But the procedure to use stool from a healthy donor to restore the normal balance of bacteria and other organisms in the intestine is considered experimental by the FDA.
Despite Targeted Raids And Take Downs, Opioid Market Continues To Thrive On The Dark Web
The fight against online drug sales often resembles the war on drugs in the physical world: There are raids. Sites are taken down. A few people are arrested. And after a while the trade and markets pop back up somewhere else. In other news on the epidemic: two teen brothers’ fatal overdoses, looking to Europe for ways to handle the crisis, expanded treatment for Medicaid patients, and more.
About 300 migrants who identify as transgender have been booked into the custody of U.S. immigration authorities since Oct. 1 — the highest number since officials started keeping track in 2015.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said they are concerned about allegations that 20 major drug manufacturers conspired to artificially inflate and manipulate the prices of more than 100 generic drugs, with the companies making billions in the process. In other pharmaceutical and biotech news: how a photocopier mistake caused a major headache; an investigation into a biohacker; a questionable sickle cell disease drug heads to the FDA; and more.
The actress Jessica Biel spoke to lawmakers about a bill that would give the final exemption authority to a state official rather than a doctor. Biel said she’s not opposed to the vaccines themselves, but rather the fact that the state would interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. The move reflected one of the realities of anti-vaccine beliefs: They are held by individuals across the country who might have little else in common, politically or otherwise.
Calling it a public health emergency, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) immediately signed the bill, adding New York — which is at the heart of the current measles outbreak — to a small list of states that do not allow exemptions on religious grounds that includes California, Arizona, West Virginia, Mississippi and Maine.
House Democrats Vote To Rollback Trump Administration’s Recent Restrictions On Fetal Tissue Research
The move, however, is mostly symbolic as the legislation is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate. The vote fell largely along party lines.
Even In 2006, Biden Felt Like A ‘Little Bit Of An Odd Man Out In My Party’ When It Came To Abortion
2020 presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden’s opinions on abortion have come under fire as of late when his campaign reiterated his support for the Hyde amendment and then reversed that stance following fierce pushback. A newly unearthed video of Biden from 2006 shows him saying that he does not view abortion as “a choice and a right.” Meanwhile, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) opens up about her own abortion. News on abortion comes out of Maine and Rhode Island, as well.
The health reimbursement arrangements are already available to employers and workers, but the administration finalized new rules that potentially could boost their popularity. Critics fear that some of the changes could undermine traditional workplace insurance, or raise premiums for individual plans.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial writers weigh in on these health care topics and others.
