The Trump administration is fighting the opioid epidemic, President Trump said Tuesday in his first State of the Union address — but the Trump administration hasn’t actually done much to fight the epidemic beyond declaring a state of emergency, which is merely a bureaucratic formality.
“In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourg...
health care
First lawsuit filed against Kentucky’s Medicaid work rules. The health care of thousands is at risk.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) upended the state’s Medicaid program two weeks ago by imposing work requirements, premiums, and other administrative changes on some enrollees. Changes to the half-century program will move 95,000 people off Medicaid coverage, state officials said. Advocates warned early on there would be lawsuits, and on Wednesday, the first one came.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, National Health Law Program, and Kentucky Equal Justice Center filed the class ac...
Trump’s beliefs about diet and exercise could make Americans sick
On Wednesday, White House physician Ronny L. Jackson revealed the results of President Donald Trump’s physical exam. His very high LDL cholesterol level, despite a prescription for a cholesterol-lowering drug, and a reported weight that put him one pound shy of being obese for his height, caused outside experts to show concern for the president’s health.
Jackson instead lauded Trump’s eyesight, cognitive abilities, and heart function, praising Trump’s genes.<...
CHIP isn’t the only health program Congress has failed to fund
It’s been 110 days since Congress failed to refinance the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that insures nine million kids nationwide. And the same is true for community health centers, which provide health care services to 27 million patients nationwide.
As members of Congress continue to wrangle over legislative details ahead of the potential government shutdown, federally-qualified health clinics, CHIP kids, and Dreamers are all caught in the middle; although...
Dear American right-wing media, ‘socialism’ isn’t to blame for the NHS crisis. Austerity is.
Britain’s National Health Service is in crisis.
The publicly-funded healthcare system, which has been part-and-parcel of British life since its foundation in 1948, has faced its worst winter crisis in more than 30 years. A combination of a severe flu outbreak, cold weather, an aging population, and high levels of respiratory disease has left the system near breaking point.
Patients have spoken of 12-hour waits at emergency rooms, ambulances have been left queuing outsid...
Trump’s big health plan will be disastrous for people with pre-existing conditions
On Thursday, the Trump administration proposed to change current health law by permitting millions of small businesses and self-employed individuals to purchase plans that don’t play by Obamacare rules.
“People have no idea how big that is,” President Donald Trump said of association health plans (AHP) in a recent New York Times interview. He’s right.
Thanks to the new proposed rule, people can exit the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace and purchas...
Nearly a third of Americans think Trump repealed Obamacare: poll
Nearly a third of Americans think that U.S. President Donald Trump has repealed Obamacare (a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act) according to a new poll.
Many midwives work in the shadows as they await proper state regulation of home births
Planned home births have increased over the past few years, but several states are only on the fringe of governing the practice — and the lack of regulation is hurting pregnant people.
Expectant individuals with healthy backgrounds and no medical risk factors often choose to deliver their babies in their homes. But the practice is contentious. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association (AMA) both oppose home birth, citin...
Obamacare enrollment at 96% of last year’s levels despite Trump’s sabotage
President Donald Trump declared Obamacare dead Wednesday after Congress passed its deeply unpopular $1.5 trillion tax overhaul bill. “Obamacare has been repealed in this bill,” he told reporters. Not only was he factually incorrect — as the bill only repeals the tax penalty for not having insurance — his statements were premature.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) released its open enrollment estimate numbers on Thursday, revealing that approximatel...