Latest KFF Health News Stories
AMA Opts To Continue Reviewing Its Opposition To Physician-Assisted Dying
The nation’s leading doctors group on Monday voted 56-44 percent to keep studying its current guidance, which states that medically-assisted deaths are “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”
USC’s Handling Of Complaints Against Campus Gynecologist Comes Under Scrutiny By Federal Government
The Department of Education has launched an investigation into the university’s response into complaints against Dr. George Tyndall and his alleged misconduct going back decades.
White House Asks HHS To Hold Off On Finalizing Religious Rule For Hospitals
Hospitals are worried about the financial burden of the rule, and say that it’s redundant because protections for employees’ religious beliefs are already in place.
Advocacy Group Blasts Democratic Lawmakers For Their Support Of Pharma’s ‘Doughnut Hole’ Battle
The lawmakers signed a letter that encouraged congressional leaders to relax a policy enacted earlier this year that put drug companies on the hook for a higher percentage of seniors’ prescription drug costs beginning in 2019. Meanwhile, HHS officials are meeting with drug companies to push for voluntary price cuts.
CMS Encouraging States To Utilize Medicaid To Help Fight Opioid Epidemic
The agency released guidelines on Monday specifically geared toward helping states use Medicaid to help infants born addicted to opioids. Meanwhile, lawmakers worry that the FDA is not doing enough to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial writers focus on these and other health care issues.
Perspectives: Rising Suicide Rates Demand New Approaches To Public Health Crisis
Opinion writers focus on the CDC’s report about a nationwide spike in suicides and the loss of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain.
Different Takes: Health Law Faces Another Legal Attack From Trump Administration
Opinion pages focus on the administration’s position not to defend the constitutionality of key parts of the Affordable Care Act.
Media outlets report on news from California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Virginia, Louisiana, Iowa and Wyoming.
New Hampshire had been the only New England state without protections for transgender people. It joins 19 other states in doing so.
California Takes Steps To Increase Access To Anti-Overdose Medication
The California Department of Public Health issued a standing order for naloxone in a move geared toward helping parts of the state where there are physician shortages and treatment facilities often struggle to find a doctor who will write a standing order for the medication. News on the crisis comes out of Kansas and Minnesota as well.
A new study finds that regional differences were great, with one abortion clinic for every 55,662 women in the Northeast and one for every 67,883 women in the West. The Midwest had the lowest number of clinics per woman, with one for every 165,886 women, while the ratio in the South was one clinic for every 145,645 women.
The provision would end the state’s expansion of Medicaid if the government fails within 12 months to approve a work requirements waiver that includes a time limit on benefits. Medicaid news comes out of Iowa, Connecticut, and D.C., as well.
Private firms are sticking families with bills for tens of thousands of dollars because insurers will only pay the same amount that Medicare will — and that doesn’t cover the businesses expenses.
The Demise Of The Rural Hospital: It ‘Was A Force Holding The Community Together’
Modern Healthcare offers a series looking at the threat to rural health care and how millions of patients could be left vulnerable as facilities shutter across the country.
While the cause of the symptoms experienced by U.S. personnel in both China and Cuba remain a medical puzzle, experts caution against spreading information about the incidents before more is known. Meanwhile, Cuba releases more details of its own investigation into the sickness.
‘My Head’s Still Not Right’: First Responders To Pulse Shooting Struggle With PTSD Two Years Later
The invisible, psychological injuries to the first responders who helped in the aftermath of the mass shooting at the nightclub are another toll of the catastrophe.
Pre-Cut Melons At Fault In Salmonella Outbreak That’s Sickened Dozens
Caito Foods, the distributor of the melons, said it was “voluntarily recalling the products out of an abundance of caution” and had stopped producing or distributing the affected products while the investigation is underway.
The technology exists to create designer babies, but few have used it beyond averting certain diseases. In other public health news: medical devices that could be powered by the human body; physician-assisted suicide; Ebola; stress and high-achieving kids; heart valves; concussions; virtual reality and pain; and more.
