Latest KFF Health News Stories
As former Vice President Joe Biden mulls a presidential run, his past with abortion rights could become baggage as he runs in a party that’s shifted further away from the antiabortion movement. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) highlights the divide that’s growing between incrementalist candidates and progressive ones.
According to Politico, CMS staffers’ objections about the deals — which use federal funds for Republican-connected communication consultants to help CMS Administrator Seema Verma — were ignored in some cases. The agency’s use of outside contracts and subcontracts is legal, but experts and current officials say it is not transparent and raises ethical questions.
Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin have had their work requirements approved by the federal government, and several other states have requests pending with the Trump administration. But a judge this week ruled that the new restrictions are illegal, leaving the future uncertain for many.
President Donald Trump said Republican senators will come up with a “spectacular” plan to replace the health law, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear he’s happy to hear what the White House comes up with but won’t be leading the way in crafting new legislation. Other Republican lawmakers are discussing alternatives.
Implementing association health plans available outside the strict requirements of the health law was framed by the White House as an affordable alternative, but U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia saw it differently. “The final rule is clearly an end-run around the ACA,” wrote Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush. “Indeed, as the president directed, and the secretary of labor confirmed, the final rule was designed to expand access to AHPs to avoid the most stringent requirements of the ACA.” It was the second blow this week to Trump administration’s health care efforts.
In the peak of the HIV epidemic in 1992, more than 2,300 new, full-blown AIDS cases were diagnosed in San Francisco. In 2017, the most recent official statistics available, 221 people were diagnosed with HIV, and that number is only expected to drop. The city may serve as a model to follow as the Trump administration works toward its goal of eradicating the virus.
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Editorial pages focus on the GOP’s proposals to keep chipping away at and ultimately destroy the Health Law and the Democrats plans to shore it up.
Research Roundup: Drug Rationing; High-Deductible Plans; And Pharmacy Benefit Managers
Each week, KHN compiles a selection of recently released health policy studies and briefs.
Media outlets report on news from Georgia, North Dakota, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas and Minnesota.
A White House Council of Economic Advisers report from 2017 put the cost of the opioid crisis between $290 billion to $622 billion in 2015 alone.
Centene To Snap Up Rival WellCare For $15B As It Dives Deeper Into Medicare, Medicaid Marketplace
The deal between Centene and WellCare would create a health care giant that specialized in offering private health plans under Medicare and Medicaid. The combined company, with revenues expected to approach $100 billion in 2019, would cover 22 million people in all 50 states.
The New York Times takes a look at religious exemptions as measles outbreaks flare around the country.
Recent suicides have highlighted how even as the world moves forward following a mass shooting, the traumatic event stays with victims and others touched by the tragedy. “You can’t let the shooting define your whole life,” said Hollan Holm, who was 14 when on Dec. 1, 1997, a fellow student opened fire at a prayer circle at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. “But you can’t put it behind you.”
The plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, 70, used Roundup to control weeds and poison oak on his property for 26 years. In determining that Monsanto was responsible, the jury awarded Hardeman $75 million in punitive damages and about $5 million for past and future suffering. The trial is only the second of more than 11,200 Roundup lawsuits set to go to trial in the United States.
Stanley Patrick Weber was convicted in September of sexually abusing two boys on a reservation in Montana and faces another trial over allegations he sexually assaulted four more in South Dakota. Congress is currently investigating flaws in the Indian Health Services system that allowed Weber to continue practicing despite allegations earlier in his career. But either way, the government will still have to pay him his pension.
Currently, the FDA mostly relies on the industry to police itself, only sporadically inspecting manufacturing sites, but that approach has been strained by an increasing proportion of drug ingredients made in places like China or India. The proposed rule changes will focus on the raw materials used to produce drugs. News on medical devices and vaping comes out of the FDA as well.
While three dozen states have rules involving breast-density notifications, the new rule would apply nationwide and update regulations for the first time in 20 years.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego had ordered the government to propose next steps by Wednesday on what to do about the children who were separated as part of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. The Justice Department wants to submit its plan by April 5. Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is for the first time in more than a decade performing direct releases of migrants, a move that is “the only current option we have” because of overcrowding.
Senate Minority Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) is pushing an amendment to an unrelated disaster relief bill that would stop the Justice Department from using federal funds to argue its case against the health law — which President Donald Trump now wants completely nullified. “The Department of Justice’s decision is a moral and institutional outrage, outrage. Not only would it harm Americans, it would undermine the rule of law,” Schumer said.
