In March, members of the Texas House of Representatives presented a proposal to expand Medicaid benefits. The bill, signed by 67 Democrats and nine Republicans, had enough votes to pass. It would have set Texas on the path to join the majority of US states (38 so far) that have expanded their populations’ eligibility for Medicaid—which provides healthcare insurance to low-income groups—since it became a possibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In Texas, Medicaid is ...
Research
Maternal death rates are a key indicator of why the state of female health in the US is so terrible
No rich country has a rate of maternal death (and near-deaths) comparably high to the US. The blame has been placed largely on how the US treats pregnancy and related emergency issues, but new data on deaths across the US (pdf) released by the country’s Centers fo...
America is running out of OB/GYNs
There aren’t enough Ob-GYNs in America, and soon there will be even fewer. Half the counties in the US don’t have any practicing OB-GYNs. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) puts the current shortage at 6,000 to 9,000 OB-GYNs countrywide, a numb...
Medical Research? Congress Cheers. Medical Care? Congress Brawls.
Lawmakers are pushing for billions in new funding for biomedical research, but sparring over health insurance and almost everything else related to the Affordable Care Act.
The New Health Care: Don’t Assume That Private Insurance Is Better Than Medicaid
A closer look at a notion embraced by conservatives, who are backing big changes to Medicaid.