Latest KFF Health News Stories
In addition, the federal government is allowing the nonprofit running the detention facility in Texas to sidestep mental health care requirements. Under federal policy, migrant youth shelters generally must have one mental health clinician for every 12 kids, but the federal agency’s contract with BCFS allows it to staff Tornillo with just one clinician for every 100 children. Meanwhile, a report finds that family separations at the border have quietly resumed.
Doctors and other experts currently or formerly working in the region point to a landscape that is not quite a war zone but in which violence can break out almost anywhere for unknown reasons. Other global health news stories report on abortion, HIV rates and child safety.
About 16 million Americans suffer from alcohol use disorder and shouldn’t go it alone when trying to stop, doctors warn. Alcohol is often the most dangerous substance for the body to withdraw from and requires medical supervision. Other public health news focuses on childhood obesity, sports nutrition, workplace wellness programs, and more.
in his first public remarks about the research, He Jiankui also said that a second pregnancy may be underway. He set off a firestorm this week after announcing that he’d created the world’s first gene-edited babies, using a technique called CRISPR, to make sure that the twin girls are impervious to HIV infection. Other scientists have lambasted the research as “deeply unethical” and “driven by hubris.”
But CMS Administrator Seema Verma did not provide any specifics on how the government would respond. Meanwhile, reinsurance programs meant to help states shore up their exchanges have found success in stabilizing the marketplace and boosting enrollment.
But CMS Administrator Seema Verma says there’s no plan to slow implementation of the work requirement rules. Since June, more than 12,000 beneficiaries in Arkansas have lost their Medicaid coverage, and thousands more are poised to be dropped next month. Verma thinks it’s “very possible” that people left Medicaid coverage because they found a job or “decided that they didn’t want coverage.” Other Medicaid news comes out of Maine, Kentucky, Georgia and Minnesota.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said, “We cannot control commercial decisions on pricing, [but] importantly, we have found that having three or more generic competitors brings prices down more sharply than with only one or two generic competitors.”
First Edition: November 28, 2018
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial pages focus on these health topics and others.
Opinion writers weigh in on women’s heath care issues.
Media outlets report on news from Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and California.
Part-time work is common for outpatient physicians, but providers on the hunt for jobs are sometimes shocked to discover that their potential employer could limit that work based on ethical and moral grounds.
Privatizing Medicaid Program Only Saved Iowa About Half Of What Had Been Projected
When Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s administration changed the system for overseeing health care for more than 600,000 poor and disabled Iowans, he projected it would produce $232 million in savings. A report by the outgoing Republican state auditor found that only $126 million has been saved. Meanwhile, Democrats, who are troubled by what they see as deteriorating care under the new system, question if the state really saved anything. Medicaid news comes out of Virginia, Tennessee and Kansas, as well.
One of the last hurdles on the $69 billion deal was met Monday when New York regulators signed after CVS agreed to several requirements, including that acquisition costs will not be passed onto consumers or to affiliated insurers covering New Yorkers.
FDA To Revamp Long-Criticized System For Approving Medical Devices
“We believe that it’s time to fundamentally modernize an approach first adopted in 1976,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement, noting that the changes under consideration would push companies to compare their devices to more up-to-date technology. And The Associated Press reports on the challenges of tracking devices.
Trump Says Obama Had An Immigration Policy To Separate Families, But That’s Not True
It was President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in families being separated, reports The Associated Press fact checker. Zero tolerance remains in effect, but Trump signed an executive order June 20 that stopped separations.
Vocal Anti-Vaccination Doctor Has Now Become A Frequent Expert Witness For Parents Accused Of Abuse
Over the past decade, David Ayoub estimates that he has testified in about 80 child abuse cases in the United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Ayoub, though, doesn’t specialize in treating children, and most of his information on the conditions he says can be misinterpreted as child abuse come from research and textbooks. In other public health news: pollution, autism, the flu, fear, cancer, diabetes, and more.
People can eat romaine again, but if there isn’t information on the label about where it came from, they should play it safe, the FDA says.
He Jiankui of Shenzhen says he altered the embryos to change a gene so that it might provide the resulting babies with a trait few people naturally have — protection against future infection from the AIDS virus. The research is unsubstantiated, but it created an immediate and fierce outcry among scientists who have been grappling with the ethics of gene editing long before the technology even existed.
Government Watchdog To Investigate Allegations Of Shadowy Mar-A-Lago Trio’s Improper Influence On VA
Th three men are said to be confidantes of President Donald Trump. “Membership in President Trump’s private club, alone, is not sufficient to have an informed opinion on the best way to deliver care and benefits to our nation’s veterans,” said Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the lawmakers who requested the GAO investigation.
