Health Debate Heats Up In Montana For This Week’s Special Election
The race for Montana’s one and only seat in the House of Representatives will be decided Thursday, and health care is taking center stage in the race’s last week.
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Who Will Care For Abril? Parents Fear For Their Disabled Child If They Are Deported
Anticipating a broader immigration crackdown, undocumented families are hiring lawyers and scrambling to make contingency plans for their seriously ill U.S.-born kids.
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New York State Wants Its Prescription Drug Money Back — Or Else
A new law gives Medicaid regulators power to threaten drugmakers with cost-effectiveness scrutiny unless they grant additional rebates.
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REPEAL & REPLACE WATCH
Republicans Race The Clock On Health Care — But The Calendar Is Not Helping
The delays in pushing through a bill to replace Obamacare are beginning to back up other key items on the congressional calendar.
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California Bill Addresses Safety Concerns At Dialysis Clinics
Legislation would require minimum staffing levels, longer intervals between patients and more frequent state inspections.
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Fearing Deportation, Parents Worry About Undocumented Kids In Medicaid Program
A 2016 California law allowed children without papers to sign up for full Medicaid benefits. More than 189,000 children have been covered, but some families now fear renewing coverage or signing up their kids for the first time.
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Navigating Aging
Like Hunger Or Thirst, Loneliness In Seniors Can Be Eased
About a third of older adults feel lonely, but learning better ways to engage with others and improve relationships can help them avoid such feelings.
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UnitedHealth Doctored Medicare Records, Overbilled U.S. By $1 Billion, Feds Claim
The company, which is the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage operator, denies wrongdoing and argues that the Justice Department “fundamentally misunderstands” how Medicare Advantage works.
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Do Best-Selling Drugs That Calm Stomachs Damage Kidneys? The Answer’s Unclear.
With flawed systems for tracking the side effects of prescription drugs, a link between proton pump inhibitors and kidney disease suggested by research cannot be proven. Patients who swear by the drugs hope it won’t be.
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REPEAL & REPLACE WATCH
Secret Sauce In Maine’s Successful High-Risk Pool: Enough Money
Before the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges began, Maine had an “invisible high-risk pool” in place. Republican lawmakers are pointing to it as a success — but it was better funded by a vast margin than the high-risk pools in the House replacement bill.
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Report: Congressional Ethics Office Probing Rep. Chris Collins’ Aussie Investment
The Buffalo News reports the Buffalo, N.Y.-area Republican has drawn inquiries from the Office of Congressional Ethics related to his investment in Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics.
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Quiz: Help Us Take The Pulse Of Our Readers
Even the most exalted among us realize health care policy is complicated. Here’s a pop quiz to see what you have learned as a regular reader of Kaiser Health News.
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Overwrought Marketing? Ads, Not Research, Create Some Pharma Best-Sellers
A look at how and why strategic, star-studded advertising brought a drug for a little-known neurological condition into your home.
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Preexisting Conditions And Continuous Coverage: Key Elements Of GOP Bill
The Republican health plan would require insurers to offer coverage to people who have preexisting medical conditions. But if states opt to allow insurers to charge sick people more than healthy ones, people who have been more than 63 days without coverage could see significantly higher insurance costs.
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Segregated Living Linked To Higher Blood Pressure Among Blacks
Blood pressure for African-Americans who moved permanently out of segregated areas into medium-segregation locations decreased on average nearly 4 points while those who went to low-segregation locales dropped almost 6 points, a 25-year study finds.
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REPEAL & REPLACE WATCH
Trump Says He Knows About Health Care, But Some Of His Facts Seem Alternative
In two interviews, the president reveals some surprising views of health policy.
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Houston Hospital Checking To See If Patients’ Cupboards Are Bare
Starting in fall 2015, Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System began to examine the food struggles among patients at four medical sites and found that 11 percent to 30 percent said they had run out of food in the prior month or thought that they would.
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Repeal & Replace Watch
Planned Parenthood Funding Could Thwart GOP Efforts On Health Bill
A provision in the House bill to strip funding from organizations that provide abortions may not meet the strict rules needed to bypass the filibuster in the Senate.
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Rural Shoppers Face Slim Choices, Steep Premiums On Exchanges
The larger an area’s population, the more likely insurers will compete in that market, according to an Urban Institute analysis.
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CMS Gives States Until 2022 To Meet Medicaid Standards Of Care
The Trump administration has given states three more years to meet federal standards aimed at helping elderly and disabled Medicaid enrollees receive services without being forced to go into nursing homes.
