Tag Archives: health care

US Life Expectancy Rises For First Time In Four Years

The Associated Press reports: Life expectancy in the United States is up for the first time in four years. The increase is small — just a month — but marks at least a temporary halt to a downward trend. The rise is due to lower death rates for cancer and drug overdoses. “Let’s just hope it continues,” said Robert Anderson, …

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Virus Update: Chinese Cases Up 50%, Third US Case

The Washington Post reports: China’s national health commission said early Sunday that the number of confirmed infections had soared 50 percent over the prior 24 hours to 1,975 people across 30 provinces. Fifty-six deaths have been reported, including in major metropolitan areas such as Shanghai. Several doctors in Beijing, the capital, also reported being infected. The United States, meanwhile, announced …

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Uninsured Number Up For First Time Since Obamacare

The Associated Press reports: The proportion of Americans without health insurance edged up in 2018 — the first evidence from the government that coverage gains under President Barack Obama’s health care law might be eroding under President Donald Trump. The Census Bureau also said in an annual report Tuesday that household income rose last year at its slowest pace in …

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CHICAGO: Hospital Employee Claims Dozens Were Fired For Wrongly Viewing Jussie Smollett’s Medical Records

CBS News Chicago reports: Dozens of workers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital may have been fired for improperly reviewing the medical records of Jussie Smollett, who was treated at the emergency room after he claimed he had been attacked by two men. Sources said those workers have been terminated after gaining access to the “Empire” actor’s medical chart. Smollett has since …

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Sen. Rand Paul To Have Hernia Surgery In Canada

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, one of the fiercest political critics of socialized medicine, will travel to Canada later this month to get hernia surgery. Paul, an ophthalmologist, said the operation is related to an injury in 2017 when his neighbor, Rene Boucher, attacked him while Paul was mowing his lawn. The incident left Kentucky’s junior senator …

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NYC Mayor Unveils “Health Care For All” Plan [VIDEO]

NBC New York reports: New York City will begin guaranteeing comprehensive health care to every single resident regardless of someone’s ability to pay or immigration status, an unprecedented plan that will protect the more than half-a-million New Yorkers currently using the ER as a primary provider, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. NYC Care is expected to launch in the Bronx …

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Big Pharma Begins Year With Hundreds Of Price Hikes

The Wall Street Journal reports: More than three dozen drugmakers raised the prices on hundreds of medicines in the U.S. on Tuesday, according to an analysis from Rx Savings Solutions, which sells software to help employers and health plans choose the least-expensive medicines. The average increase was 6.3%, according to the analysis, including increases on different doses for the same …

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STUDY: Nearly 1 In 3 US Physicians Are Foreign-Born

Medical XPress reports: At a time when immigration is a hot-button issue, the American health care system is highly dependent on professionals born in other countries, an analysis of U.S. census data shows. In 2016, roughly 17 percent of professionals in 24 medical fields—from optometrists to chiropractors to veterinarians—were foreign-born, and almost 5 percent of them were not U.S. citizens, …

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HHS Deletes LGBT Resources From Obamacare Site

Just in from the Democratic National Committee: Today, the Sunlight Foundation reported that the Trump-Pence administration’s Department of Health and Human Services removed and altered language from its website on the provision of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits discrimination in health care services.  The move limits access to information and resources that protect women and LGBTQ people, particularly transgender …

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Trump Suspends Obamacare Payments To Insurers

The New York Daily News reports: The Trump administration announced Saturday it will temporarily suspend a program meant to stabilize Obamacare markets by halting billion of dollars in payouts to insurance companies. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — known by the abbreviation CMS — will temporarily stop so-called “risk-adjustment payments” used to steady Obamacare health insurance premiums. …

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Lindsey Graham To Attempt Obamacare Repeal Again

Gotta keep the base riled up no matter what: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday he is working on a new version of his ObamaCare repeal and replacement bill, and has not given up on efforts to repeal ObamaCare despite Republicans’ failure last year. “I haven’t given up,” Graham said. “Will there be another effort to replace ObamaCare with a …

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Midterms: Dems Run On GOP’s Obamacare Sabotage

Politico reports: Democrats are confidently running on Obamacare for the first time in a decade. They’ve got a unified message blaming Republicans for “sabotaging” the health law, leading to a cascade of sky-high insurance premiums that will come just before the November midterm elections. They’re rolling out ads featuring people helped by the law. And Tuesday, they’re starting a campaign …

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LIVE VIDEO: Trump Unveils Plan To Lower Drug Prices

CNN Money reports: President Donald Trump will lay out his vision for lowering drug prices in a long-awaited speech on Friday. The president plans to provide a blueprint on how he will make prescription medication more affordable, according to senior administration officials. It will seek to increase competition and improve the negotiation of drug prices, as well as reduce consumers’ …

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Amazon Partners On Non-Profit Health Care Company

The Washington Post reports: Amazon is diving into health care, teaming up with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the New York bank JPMorgan Chase, to create a company that helps their U.S. employees find quality care “at a reasonable cost.” The business giants offered few details Tuesday and said that the project is in the early planning stage. “The ballooning …

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Head Of Planned Parenthood Steps Down [VIDEO]

Vogue reports: Cecile Richards is stepping down from her position as president of Planned Parenthood after more than a decade at its helm. Richards, 60, has become the de facto face of the reproductive rights organization, and has navigated major wins (such as getting 55 million women covered for birth control under the Affordable Care Act) and major obstacles (like …

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HHS Unveils “Religious Freedom” Division For Health Workers Who Want To Refuse LGBT Patients [VIDEO]

ABC News reports: The Trump administration announced on Thursday a new division within the Department of Health and Human Services devoted to “conscience and religious freedom.” Social conservatives and religious liberty leaders have anticipated conscience and religious freedom protections to come out of HHS, and the work of the new division, which will fall under the purview of the Office …

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2017 Obamacare Enrollments Robust Despite Trump

Talking Points Memo reports: The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that despite the Trump administration’s many attempts to undermine and weaken the Affordable Care Act, enrollment in the federal health care marketplace nearly reached last year’s total of 9.2 million, clocking in at 8.8 million. Considering that the Trump administration cut the length of the open enrollment …

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STUDY: Obamacare Markets Are Stabilizing

The Hill reports: A new analysis of health insurers’ financial data finds that ObamaCare markets are “stabilizing” and insurers are regaining profitability. The study from the Kaiser Family Foundation contrasts with Republican arguments that ObamaCare markets are in a “death spiral” and “collapsing,” frequently cited as showing why the law needs to be repealed. “Early results from 2017 suggest the …

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Rand Paul: Health Insurance Should Be $1/Day [VIDEO]

The Washington Examiner reports: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Friday morning he believes consumers should be able to buy health insurance for $1 per day. “What I’d like to do is legalize inexpensive insurance, and you should be able to get insurance for $1 a day. I mean, you really should,” Paul said in an interview on MSNBC. “The insurance …

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Obama Blasts Senate Trumpcare Bill As A “Massive Transfer Of Wealth” To The Richest People In America

From President Obama’s personal Facebook page: The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with …

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