Latest KFF Health News Stories
“When you are skating on thin ice with your margins, any movements in payer type can really move the needle,” said Bill Kauffman, senior principal at NIC. More than 440 rural nursing homes have closed or merged nationwide in the last decade.
The report also said that lack of sleep could be a contributing factor. Between 2008 and 2017, suicides among young adults in age brackets between 18 and 25 grew by as much as 56 percent, and the rate at which these young people entertained thoughts of suicide rose by up to 68 percent. “It’s an alarming trend,” said Dr. Ramin Mojtabai, a Johns Hopkins University psychiatrist.
The diagnosis can often be highly fatal because the cancer is difficult to detect, but there are steps that people should be aware they can take to help avoid finding it too late. In other public health news: measles, memory, the mysterious Cuba illness, language, Alzheimer’s, and more.
In the lawsuit, the Sandy Hook families seized upon the marketing for the AR-15-style Bushmaster used in the 2012 attack, which invoked the violence of combat and used slogans like “Consider your man card reissued.” Lawyers for the families argued that those messages reflected a deliberate effort to appeal to troubled young men like Adam Lanza. The court found that sweeping federal protections for gunmakers did not prevent the families from bringing a lawsuit based on wrongful marketing claims.
The FDA’s fast-track designation facilitates the development and expedites the review of drugs that treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need. Many advocates are left wondering if Purdue Pharma is about to benefit from the opioid epidemic that they say the company helped create. Other news on the crisis comes out of Ohio, Massachusetts and Missouri.
Departing FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has made it one of his top priorities to regulate the e-cigarette industry in hopes of curbing teen vaping. With him leaving, some tobacco companies are eager to redirect lawmakers’ attention elsewhere. But Norman “Ned” Sharpless, the incoming acting commissioner, has spoken out with anti-tobacco messages in the past.
Contradictions Lay At The Heart Of Trump’s Health Care Priorities In Proposed Budget
President Donald Trump wants to give hundreds of millions of dollar to fight the HIV epidemic domestically, yet he is also proposing cutting global aid for the disease, as well calling for sharp spending reductions to Medicaid, a program many people with HIV rely upon. The president has taken aim at childhood cancer and the opioid crisis, but also would chip away at infrastructure in health care that would support those goals. Meanwhile, the Washington Post Fact Checker takes a look at Democrats’ take on the proposed Medicare changes in the budget.
Federal Judge Appears Skeptical Over Financial Argument For Medicaid Work Requirements
“It seems to me that your fiscal sustainability [argument] relies on the fact that they’re lucky to have Medicaid at all,” said Judge James E. Boasberg who is hearing cases out of Arkansas and Kentucky on whether the Trump administration has the authority to grant states the flexibility to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs. Boasberg hopes to issue both decisions simultaneously before Kentucky’s changes are slated to take effect April 1. Meanwhile, CMS is rolling out new tools to help states apply for a work requirement waiver.
O’Rourke Enters 2020 Race With Some Health Law Baggage–And A Centrist Message
When running as a politician in Texas in 2012, Beto O’Rourke said he didn’t support the health law “in its current form.” Now in 2020, he has touted the importance of universal health care, but like other moderates in the race has been careful to avoid coming out for one particular “Medicare for All” plan.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Opinion writers weigh in on these health issues and others.
Research Roundup: ‘Medicare For All’; Surprise Medical Bills; And Contraception
Each week, KHN compiles a selection of recently released health policy studies and briefs.
Media outlets report on news from California, Louisiana, Utah, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts and Florida.
News from state legislatures comes out of New York, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and California.
The head of the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board Alison Bort, in responding to public scrutiny over the state’s failure to properly oversee inmates who are discharged, said that the board needs to do better. Bort said she hopes a task force can examine four areas: how defendants get into the system, their treatment while under state jurisdiction, the process for early discharges and then dealing with people once they have been freed.
Arkansas Senate Approves Bill Banning Abortion At 18 Weeks By 86-1 Vote
Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he supports the measure that adds exceptions for rape and incest. Another 18-week ban is pending in Utah. These are among the most restrictive anti-abortion bills being considered across the nation. Abortion news comes out of Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Ohio, as well.
At the upcoming annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, researchers will unveil the first results of a study of 400,000 people wearing the device. Cardiology is becoming a testing ground for new tech. Other health technology stories include news on the Cleveland Clinic’s new artificial intelligence center and Amazon’s latest product for sale–modular hospital rooms.
There’s billions of dollars at stake, with each company having “shot for the moon” in their damages requests. The court proceedings peeled back the curtain on large-scale mergers in the health industry, and aired a lot of dirty laundry along the way. In other health industry news: dental insurance, profit reports and federal tax refunds.
Advocates on social media are targeting scientists who release studies that don’t fit into their views on the diseases, going so far as to wishing for the demise of their careers because of a research paper. Scientists say it can dissuade researchers for wanting to do work on certain diseases, setting off a vicious cycle where patients are the ones who suffer. In other public health news: memory, drug side effects, dieting and aging.
Measles outbreaks in New York prompted health officials to take what they say is the unprecedented step of banning unvaccinated children from attending certain schools that had vaccination rates lower than 95 percent. The parents of more than 40 banned children at Green Meadow Waldorf School sued, but Federal District Court Judge Vincent Bricetti ruled that it wasn’t in “public interest” to allow the children to go back to school. Meanwhile, Amazon has pulled two books that promote the antivaccination movement.
