On Friday night, the 2019 WNBA season tips off with a contest between the Atlanta Dream and Dallas Wings. It’s a pivotal season for the league’s future. Last fall, the WNBA Player’s Association opted out of its current collective bargaining agreement, and players will be spending their spare time during the season fighting for better wages, resources, and support.
But while the league-wide drama both on and off the court remains the utmost importance to the league&...
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Trump administration has now dismantled every major transgender protection it can
The Trump administration announced Friday morning sweeping changes to the rules protecting transgender people from discrimination in health care. Combined with an announcement earlier this week ending gender identity protections in homeless shelters, the administration has now taken steps to exclude transgender people from almost every aspect of public life, including employment, housing, health care, education, prisons, and the military.
The Trump administration has been forecastin...
Trump uses 1996 welfare reform bill to go after immigrants who use public benefits
President Trump is getting serious about going after immigrants who use public benefits.
In a presidential memorandum issued Thursday, Trump announced he will direct federal agencies to enforce a longstanding rule requiring the sponsors — usually U.S. citizen family members — of immigrants to reimburse the government for any public benefits they use, including Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
“Financial sponsors who...
Health Department announces new rule weakening nondiscrimination protections for trans people
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new rule Friday that would seriously harm transgender people’s access to health care.
The department announced a revision to the nondiscrimination section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as “Section 1557.” That provision prevented discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex. Under the Obama administration, the department interpreted sex discrimination to ...
The Health 202: There are still a lot of questions about Medicare-for-all
The deputy CBO director answered a lot of them with 'it depends.'
Cory Booker would put an ‘Office of Reproductive Freedom’ in the White House
Amid a nationwide onslaught of anti-abortion bills whose reach and cruelty seem to be, like the universe, expanding at ever-increasing rates, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced Wednesday that, if elected president, he would create a White House Office of Reproductive Freedom on his first day in the White House.
“Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country are mounting a coordinated attack on abortion access and reproductive rights,” he said in a statement.
“A ...
What Do Private Health Plans Pay Hospitals Compared to Medicare?
The majority of the U.S. population is enrolled in a private health plan. A recent report examined U.S. hospital prices for 25 states and discovered that in 2017, the prices paid to hospitals for privately insured patients averaged 241 percent of what Medicare would have paid.