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6.43pm GMT
A doctor who helped draft Obamacare said he’s “not particul...
Trump administration
US rate of uninsured children increases for the first time in nearly a decade
Nearly four million children in the United States are uninsured, the highest rate in nearly a decade.
The latest data, released by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families on Thursday, reflects an unprecedented increase in the number of children without health insurance, at a time when the Trump administration continues its assault on health care by chipping away at the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The Georgetown report found that approximately 276,000 more chi...
Trump administration finalizes rules allowing employers to stop paying for birth control
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it has finalized the rollback of an Obama-era rule mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that required employers to provide contraception coverage for their employees, regardless of whether it conflicts with their moral or religious beliefs.
The new rules, set to take place in about 60 days, will allow employers that object to the use of birth control to stop paying for their workers’ contraception. The change will affect b...
Trump administration falsely blames Obama administration for transgender erasure proposal
The Trump administration issued a new response Monday to the New York Times’ report that it is considering a plan to erase transgender people from recognition under federal nondiscrimination laws. This attempt to blame the Obama administration for the current circumstances is not only false, but further undermined by conservative groups’ praise for the news.
In a statement calling the Times’ story “misleading,” Health and Human Services spokesperson Cai...
It’s not an exaggeration to say the Trump administration wants to erase transgender people
A Sunday New York Times article revealed that the Trump administration is planning to impose a rule that would effectively erase the existence of transgender people under the law. Though the Times did not share the full memo draft it had reviewed, it detailed the memo’s plan to define sex across agencies as “either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with” — subject to genetic testing.
It’s the equivalent of impo...
Trump’s new pick to lead Medicaid ran Maine’s public health department into the ground
The Trump administration is putting the health insurance of millions of Americans in the hands of a former Maine official best known for undermining the public health infrastructure in her state to put low-income families at risk.
Mary Mayhew, Maine’s former health commissioner, was tapped on Monday to run the national Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs. Mayhew will now control the $350 billion budget of the two health insurance programs ser...
Trump administration moves to limit green cards for immigrants that used public benefits
The proposed regulation would expand immigration officers' ability to deny visas or legal permanent residency to aspiring immigrants if they have received a range of taxpayer-funded benefits, such as Medicaid.
Trump officials move to restrict immigrants who use public benefits
Proposals mean permanent residence applicants could be judged a burden for receiving legal benefits like food aid
The Trump administration on Saturday said it would propose making it harder for foreigners living in the United States to qualify for permanent US residency if they have received public benefits such as food aid, public housing or Medicaid.
The proposed regulation from the Department of Homeland Security would instruct immigration officers to consider whether a person has received a range of taxpayer-funded benefits to which they are legally entitled in determining whether a potential immigrant is likely to become a public burden.
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Trump team succeeds in freezing progress on health insurance enrollment, poverty
Years of progress on health insurance enrollment halted abruptly in 2017 as Trump administration officials intentionally unplugged the policy machines that pushed the uninsured rate below 10 percent over the previous half-decade.
New Census Bureau figures on poverty released Wednesday show the uninsured rate held steady at 8.8 percent last year, marking the first failure to improve enrollment levels since at least 2013. Changes to Census data collection that year make comparisons to...
Cities sue Trump for sabotaging Obamacare
Four cities filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Thursday accusing the president and his cabinet of “waging a relentless campaign to sabotage and, ultimately, to nullify” the Affordable Care Act.
The suit — filed in a Maryland federal court by Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Baltimore — comes on the heels of the Department of Health and Human Services’ finalization Wednesday of regulations allowing people to keep short-term health insurance plans for up to...