Some of the nation's largest insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) impose coverage exclusions and other restrictions on birth control products, contrary to an Affordable Care Act requirement, according to a House investigation.
Under the ACA, health plans must cover Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contraceptive products without cost-sharing. But a staff report from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee found insurers and PBMs required patients to p...
Month: October 2022
Sacrificing health care on the altar of ideology
Medical doctors are among the most highly educated professionals on the planet. Why, then, would the federal government seek to curtail their ability to perform their jobs to the best of their ability? Knee-capping the scientific process in the name of highly contested “gender-affirming” care not only puts patients in a needlessly risky position; it forces physicians to choose between abiding by government edicts and following their own medical judgment.
The Centers for Medica...
Sacrificing health care on the altar of ideology
Medical doctors are among the most highly educated professionals on the planet. Why, then, would the federal government seek to curtail their ability to perform their jobs to the best of their ability? Knee-capping the scientific process in the name of highly contested “gender-affirming” care not only puts patients in a needlessly risky position; it forces physicians to choose between abiding by government edicts and following their own medical judgment.
The Centers for Medica...
Democrats grumble it’s too little, too late with Obama
When aides to Barack Obama announced the former president’s schedule for the midterm elections late last week, some Democrats were already grumbling.
For weeks, Democrats had been wondering where Obama was ahead of a midterm fight where the party is clinging to the slimmest of majorities in the House and Senate.
President Biden is widely seen as a drag on the party’s fortunes this cycle as he battles dismal approval ratings. With some candidates not wanting Bid...
Democrats grumble it’s too little, too late with Obama
When aides to Barack Obama announced the former president’s schedule for the midterm elections late last week, some Democrats were already grumbling.
For weeks, Democrats had been wondering where Obama was ahead of a midterm fight where the party is clinging to the slimmest of majorities in the House and Senate.
President Biden is widely seen as a drag on the party’s fortunes this cycle as he battles dismal approval ratings. With some candidates not wanting Bid...
Five things to know about the IRS’s changes to next year’s taxes
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COVID contributed to a quarter of maternal deaths in 2021, 2020: GAO
Maternal mortality rose during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the virus contributing to a quarter of all maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021.
According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), COVID-19 caused most of the increase in maternal deaths in the last two years, contributing to 25 percent of deaths.
The average number of monthly maternal deaths ranged from the mid-50s to the mid-60s in the two years before the pandemic bega...
Social Security, Medicare are on the line this November — and women older than 50 know it
Women older than 50 are the most likely group to vote in the midterm elections and make up a large and growing share of the electorate; in fact, nearly 1 in 3 votes cast in 2020 were from women in this age group. Despite women’s electoral heft, Republican Senate candidates like Blake Masters of Arizona, Adam Laxalt of Nevada and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have called for cuts to two key programs on which 50+ women disproportionately rely on and strongly support: Social Security and Med...
If you think the deficit is bad now, it will soon get worse
America’s finances are in trouble. Despite relatively optimistic predictions by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the current deficit of $1.4 trillion is only going to get worse.
In July, CBO projected that the federal government budget deficit would be 3.7 percent of GDP in 2023, down from recent record highs of 12.4 percent of GDP in 2021. While still above the pre-pandemic average (since 2000) of 3.5 percent, this would be the lowest percentage sinc...
The real threat to democracy: Declining trust in the courts
A key ingredient for a healthy democracy is an independent and (to the extent possible) an apolitical judiciary. Yet recent polls show public trust in the judicial branch of the federal government reaching its lowest point in decades, primarily among Democrats. That is entirely because the judicial branch, and especially the U.S. Supreme Court, isn’t ruling the way Democrats want. And their proposed efforts to “fix” the Court would destroy its credibility.
According to a recen...