health care

Utah senator politicized bill that provides insurance to kids. Now his state is the first casualty.

Affordable Care Act, health, health care, News, obamacare, politics

Funding for the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers 8.9 million children, expires Saturday because lawmakers were too busy trying to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

CHIP provides low-cost health insurance to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Enacted in 1997, CHIP is a companion program to Medicaid, where states had the option to set up an independent CHIP program or extend Medicaid eligibility to children up t...

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Illinois governor reverses course, will expand abortion access for low-income residents

health care, News, politics, reproductive-rights

It’s been a surprisingly successful week for reproductive rights activists, after Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) said Thursday he would sign into law a bill that would expand taxpayer-subsidized abortions for those covered by Medicaid and state employee insurance.

In April, Rauner said he would veto the bill, but reversed course after meeting with activist groups both for and against the legislation.

“I believe that a woman living with limited financial means should not be pu...

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Experts confirm gender identity is biological and say insurers should cover trans health needs

Donald Trump, health, health care, lgbtq, News, transgender

The Endocrine Society, an international organization of medical experts and biological researchers, has released a new set of guidelines for caring for transgender patients. Along with the guidelines, the organization has issued a position statement calling on federal and private insurers to cover the costs of all medical interventions a physician might prescribe for a transgender patient, including hormone replacement therapies and surgeries.

The updated guidelines and position sta...

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Here are all the ways Trump could still sabotage Obamacare

Affordable Care Act, health, health care, News, obamacare, trumpcare

Following the failure of the latest Republican health care bill, which couldn’t muster enough votes to pass, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to promise, yet again, to kill Obamacare.

With one Yes vote in hospital & very positive signs from Alaska and two others (McCain is out), we have the HCare Vote, but not for Friday!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2017

That’s a good reminder that the pu...

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Republicans concede their latest Trumpcare bill is dead

congress, Donald Trump, health care, News, obamacare

A hastily written health bill — with deep cuts to Medicaid and major hits to patient regulatory protections — ran into the same political problems as bills before it, and failed to garner enough support in the Senate.

Republicans announced Tuesday the party does not have the votes to pass their latest health care bill, known as the Graham-Cassidy bill, and will forgo a vote this week. Instead they will move on to tax reform, reaching for at least one legislative win befo...

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Another ACA repeal bill is dead, but it was never about crafting policy

congress, Donald Trump, health care, News, politics

On Monday night, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) gathered for a CNN town hall debate over a health care bill spearheaded by Graham and Cassidy.

“This is a debate about who has the power, you or the federal government?” Cassidy said at one point. “I will tell you, if it’s a decision about you versus the federal government, we side with you…. Those who oppose us and those who want single-payer, they choose otherwise.”

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When Cassidy’s health clinic closed, its patients only saving grace was Obamacare

health, health care, News, obamacare, politics, trumpcare

Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic — a virtual health clinic in Louisiana co-founded by then-doctor and now Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — closed in July 2015. It had been getting increasingly harder to get grants to fund the ‘clinic without walls,’ which connected uninsured people who needed care to providers; it was a free clinic and received no federal or state funds. After much deliberation, the clinic shut its doors. 

“We felt better about closing th...

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The U.S. is still behind the rest of the world on access to birth control pills

health care, News, reproductive-rights

There are 102 countries in the world where you can buy birth control pills without seeing your doctor, but the United States isn’t one of them.

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has endorsed the idea of true access to over-the-counter birth control since 2012 and 76 percent of doctors and 70 percent of other health care providers have said that people should have over-the-counter access.

One common concern is whether people who can get pregnant ...

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Graham and Cassidy were asked why they’re defunding Planned Parenthood. Their answers were ridiculous

congress, health, health care, News, politics, reproductive-rights

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) invoked highly edited, debunked videos targeting Planned Parenthood from 2015 at a CNN town hall Monday night when a woman shared her story of how Planned Parenthood helped her have children.

Graham, along with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), has been spearheading a repeal and replace bill in the Senate that would, among other things, defund Planned Parenthood.

The woman at Monday’s town hall told a story about when Planned Parenthood discovered cysts and...

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