Latest KFF Health News Stories
While experts called the increased domestic spending for HIV “quite significant,” they said any progress will be undermined by the deep cuts that were proposed to the health law and Medicaid in other parts of the budget. Meanwhile, critics used the dichotomy between slashing global aid while increasing funding domestically as an example of the administration’s contradicting messages when it comes to fighting the epidemic.
The administration’s budget signals cuts at almost every institute that is part of the National Institutes of Health. However, the agency and its work have become quite popular in recent years on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, Trump also proposed that the e-cigarette industry should pay $100 million a year in user fees, with the funds going to pay for beefed-up FDA oversight efforts.
Trump’s Budget Encourages State Flexibility In Limiting Medicaid Programs To Save Money
The president’s budget proposes converting all the health law’s funding into block grants. It would also convert Medicaid into a per capita cap system that would dole out funding based on the state’s population. It’s highly unlikely the proposals will make it into law, but it highlights a continued effort by the administration to reshape the Medicaid program. Meanwhile, HHS sees a sharp decrease in funding in the budget.
President Donald Trump, in his budget, called for some belt-tightening when it comes to Medicare in aim to reduce “waste, fraud and abuse” in the popular program. Democrats seized on the proposed Medicare cuts as an example of the GOP seeking to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and the poor after giving broad tax breaks to the wealthy. Meanwhile, hospitals came out as vocally opposed to the deep cuts.
President Donald Trump released his $4.75 trillion budget, which included a big increase in military spending and deep cuts to other domestic spending. The presidential budget is all but dead-on-arrival on Capitol Hill and can be viewed more as a symbolic roadmap for priorities than a realistic spending plan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s cuts “cruel and shortsighted … a roadmap to a sicker, weaker America,” while other Democrats were also quick to condemn the proposal.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial writers weigh in on these public health issues and others.
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Media outlets report on news from Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Louisiana, Minnesota, Georgia, Texas, Missouri and Wisconsin.
News from state legislatures comes from Georgia, Montana, Vermont, Ohio, and Florida.
How Game-Theory Economists Changed The Landscape Of Living-Donor Organ Transplants
Kidney donations from living donors require a close biological match, which can be devastatingly rare to find. But organ exchange chains–where one person’s loved one gives to a patient, whose’ loved one gives to another patient and so on–have been opening up a whole world of possibilities for some families. In other public health news: gun control, depression, diabetes, AIDS, the flu, timeout, rape survivors, meat, pregnancy and more.
The push to get rid of standard time has been growing in recent years, as more and more studies highlight the negative health effects of changing the time twice a year.
Robotic Surgery Is Widely Used For Cancer Patients, Yet Health Benefits Are Unproven, FDA Warns
There’s little evidence to suggest patients who receive robotic treatments live longer than those who undergo traditional surgeries and some patients fare worse. News on health technology also looks at video conferences with the doctor; artificial intelligence diagnosis; hospital data breaches; and more.
Supreme Court Upholds Decision That Medicaid Must Cover Women’s Sex Reassignment Surgery
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the argument that the policy’s explicit exclusion of gender-reassignment surgeries was merely a specified example within the broader category of “cosmetic, reconstructive, and plastic surgeries” that were excluded from coverage was invalid. “The [department] expressly denied Good and Beal coverage for their surgical procedures because they were ‘related to transsexualism … (or) gender identity disorders’ and ‘for the purpose of sex reassignment,'” Justice Susan Christensen wrote, citing segments of the policy.
Although the rule is geared toward changing how Medicare handles rebates to middlemen, members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission want to make sure Medicaid beneficiaries are protected from any downstream ramifications. Meanwhile, Medicare advisers talk about a unified payment system for post-acute care facilities.
Roche Scores FDA Approval For First Immunotherapy Drug To Treat Breast Cancer
Despite the fact that costly immunotherapy drugs help only a small minority of patients, breast cancer doctors are calling the approval “tremendously exciting.” In other pharmaceutical news: biologics and drugs for preventing premature births.
Oklahoma is seeking payments that could exceed $1 billion from drugmakers to cover the costs of coping with the drug crisis. While much of the nation’s attention has been focused on the massive, consolidated Ohio trial, the Oklahoma case will actually be the first one to see its day in court. Meanwhile, Purdue Pharma defends the timing on its possible decision to file for bankruptcy.
The harrowing tale of an unvaccinated 6-year-old boy who got a cut on his head and later developed tetanus was detailed in a new report last week. The experience highlights just how costly and dangerous the old disease that doctors thought was under control can be. “I honestly never thought I would see this disease in the United States,” said Dr. Judith A. Guzman-Cottrill, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University, who helped care for the boy and was the lead author of the article.
A report shows that 245 children have been taken from their families even after the court ordered the government to halt routine separations. The new separations are taking place amid an unprecedented influx of migrant families from across the southern border that has highlighted the failure of the Trump administration’s hard-line policies to deter them. Meanwhile, a judge may expand the number of families that the government is responsible for reuniting, and mumps outbreaks hit detention centers.
Sanders Raises The Stakes On His ‘Medicare For All’ Plan By Including Expansion For Long-Term Care
The move from 2020 hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) followed action by Medicare for All allies in the House to incorporate a generous long-term care benefit in their newly introduced legislation. Experts are excited that it is getting attention. Long-term care has “always been the stepchild,” said Marc Cohen, a gerontology researcher and professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
