Latest KFF Health News Stories
The measures are being watched closely as a method to expanding Medicaid in states with resistant legislatures. Ballot initiatives “are so powerful because they strip away from the partisanship and the tribalism that dominates so much of our politics,” said Jonathan Schliefer, executive director of The Fairness Project. “When it comes to health care, the biggest gap isn’t between Republicans and Democrats. It’s between politicians and everyone else.” Meanwhile, The Washington Post fact checks campaign ads that claim Republicans will get rid of Medicare.
The report that the Trump administration would define gender at birth has rankled scientists who study sex, gender identity and gender expression.
Advocates for transgender and other LBGTQ community rights organized a fast and furious campaign after it was revealed that the Trump administration is considering a new federal definition of gender that would effectively deny legal recognition and civil rights protections to transgender Americans.
Trump Plan Targets Restrictions On Health Reimbursement Options For Small-Business Employers
The administration is proposing regulations to expand so-called “health reimbursement arrangements,” which are employer-funded, tax-advantaged accounts that employees can use to cover health costs. Critics say the move could allow employers to devise strategies for shifting workers with high health care costs off their corporate plans.
States, for example, would be able to subsidize short-term plans that don’t offer the comprehensive coverage that is guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. The timing of the announcement just weeks before the midterms, when Republicans have been playing defense over preexisting conditions protections, raised some brows among experts.
First Edition: October 23, 2018
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial pages focus on these health topics and others.
Editorial pages weigh in on these health policies and others.
Media outlets report on news from Massachusetts, Virginia, Utah, Texas, Ohio, New Hampshire, Texas, California and Michigan.
Women who received health services from the University of Southern California’s longtime campus gynecologist George Tyndall will be eligible to receive $2,500, according to the university. Those who provide details on their experiences under his care could receive up to $250,000 more.
Any Kind Of Exercise Can Help With Mental Health, But Playing Team Sports Can Amplify That Boost
“If you just run on a treadmill for example, it’s clear that you’re getting that biological stimulation. But perhaps there are other elements of depression that you’re not going to be tapping into,” said Adam Chekroud, one of the study’s authors. In other public health news: memory, the polio-like illness that’s striking children, suicide, loneliness in HIV patients, and more.
With the campaign, CDC hopes to prevent a million heart attacks and strokes by the year 2022. The campaign would focus on small steps Americans can take to cut their risk factors, such as exercising the recommended amount and giving up smoking. Meanwhile, New York City wants to tackle Americans’ sugar addiction.
After losing its Medicare certification, the transplant center had temporarily suspended its program in June in order to review the deaths of patients following heart transplants. In a statement, the hospital said it will continue to make improvements in the program. The original director, Dr. Jeffrey Morgan, is still on staff and the hospital declined to describe his current duties.
The initiative’s software was supposed to help suggest treatment options for cancer, but the program has stumbled in the past few years as it tries to integrate into the health system. Deborah DiSanzo will be succeeded by John Kelly, the senior vice president for Cognitive Solutions and IBM Research, who will step into DiSanzo’s role in an acting capacity.
VA Urged To Reconsider Stance Against Expanded Benefits For Vets Exposed To Agent Orange, Burn Pits
Veterans’ advocates have long been trying to get the VA to provide coverage for the negative effects experienced by soldiers who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Now Congress has joined the push. The health impact from burn pits is also getting attention, but is a more recent issue so scientific studies are still being done.
Women Are Miscarrying After Employers Deny Their Light Duty Requests Even With Notes From Doctors
And it’s completely legal for the employers to do so. Under federal law, companies don’t necessarily have to adjust pregnant women’s jobs, even when lighter work is available and their doctors send letters urging a reprieve. The New York Times investigates the issue that’s affected women across the country. News on women’s health also focuses on fertility rates, abortion, and ovarian cancer.
In states that expanded Medicaid, the program already covers addiction treatment for nearly everyone who is poor and needs it, so they have to rely less heavily on extra opioid funding. In other news on the crisis: celebrities help fight addiction stigma; a look at a wildly successful Shanghai-based syndicate; why abuse-resistant opioid pills are failing to make strides on the market; and more.
“You can only see so many pictures on TV of broken homes and trees,” said one volunteer Norma Ward. “Then you start thinking, ‘O.K., everything’s all good again.’” Meanwhile, the storm’s mental toll mounts and medical services in the area are still on life support.
Maryland Wants Supreme Court To Review Ruling That Knocked Down State’s Drug Price Gouging Law
A federal appeals court last spring said the law — which allows Maryland’s Medicaid program to notify the state attorney general when an “essential” drug rises in price by 50 percent — gives Maryland officials the right to govern business outside the state, effectively providing “unprecedented powers to regulate the national pharmaceutical market.”
In Long-Awaited Breakthrough, Immunotherapy Drugs Show Promise Fighting Aggressive Breast Cancer
The therapy found some success against triple-negative tumors, which occur in only about 15 percent of patients with invasive breast cancer but account for up to 40 percent of the deaths. “These women really needed a break,” Dr. Ingrid Mayer, a breast cancer specialist at Vanderbilt University.
