For the Love of Health Care and Health Policy
ϳԹ News shares the crème de la crème of reader-submitted health policy valentines. Two of our favorites melted our hearts and inspired original illustrations.
All Coverage
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In Fight Over Medicare Payments, the Hospital Lobby Shows Its Strength
Medicare pays hospitals about double what it pays other providers for the same services. The hospital lobby is fighting hard to make sure a switch to “site-neutral payments” doesn’t become law.
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‘Behind the Times’: Washington Tries to Catch Up With AI’s Use in Health Care
Lawmakers and regulators are trying to understand how AI is changing health care and how it should be regulated. The industry fears overreach.
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States Target Health Insurers’ ‘Prior Authorization’ Red Tape
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
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Perspective
GoFundMe Has Become a Health Care Utility
Resorting to crowdfunding to pay medical bills has become so routine, in some cases health professionals recommend it.
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Do We Simply Not Care About Old People?
Recently, thousands of older Americans have been dying weekly of covid. But most Americans aren’t wearing masks in public, a move that could prevent infections. Many at-risk seniors aren’t getting antiviral therapies, and older adults in nursing homes aren’t getting vaccines. Why?
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To End School Shootings, Activists Consider a New Culprit: Parents
For the first time, a jury has convicted a parent of a school shooter of charges related to the child’s crime, finding a mother in Michigan guilty of involuntary manslaughter and possibly opening a new legal avenue for gun control advocates. Meanwhile, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case challenging the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, a medical publisher has retracted some of the journal studies that lower-court judges relied on in their decisions. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Rachana Pradhan of ϳԹ News join ϳԹ News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
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FDA’s Plan to Ban Hair Relaxer Chemical Called Too Little, Too Late
The FDA’s recent notice that it would move to ban formaldehyde in hair-straightening products comes more than a decade after researchers raised alarms about health risks. Scientists say a ban would still leave many dangerous chemicals in hair straighteners.
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Cities Know That the Way Police Respond to Mental Crisis Calls Must Change. But How?
Cities are experimenting with new ways to meet the rapidly increasing demand for behavioral health crisis intervention, at a time when incidents of police shooting and killing people in mental health crisis have become painfully familiar.
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Colorado Moves to Connect Agricultural Workers With Mental Health Resources
Advocates say two bills under consideration could help migrant communities but that more needs to be done.
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Halfway Through ‘Unwinding,’ Medicaid Enrollment Is Down About 10 Million
While more Medicaid beneficiaries have been purged in the span of a year than ever before, enrollment is on track to settle at pre-pandemic levels.
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Is Housing Health Care? State Medicaid Programs Increasingly Say ‘Yes’
States are using their Medicaid programs to offer poor and sick people housing services, such as paying six months’ rent or helping hunt for apartments. The trend comes in response to a growing homelessness epidemic, but experts caution this may not be the best use of limited health care money.
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Back From COP28, California Climate Leaders Talk Health Impacts of Warming
Three leading California officials who represented the state at the United Nations climate talks late last year reflect on climate change’s growing threat to human health — and explain what the state is trying to do about it.
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Congressman Off-Base in Ad Claiming Fauci Shipped Covid to Montana Before the Pandemic
Facts don’t support claims by a likely Republican Senate candidate that a federal research laboratory in Montana infected bats with a coronavirus from China before the covid-19 outbreak.
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Journalists Catch Up on Top Issues Facing 2024 Voters, From Obamacare to Opioids
ϳԹ News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
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Possibility of Wildlife-to-Human Crossover Heightens Concern About Chronic Wasting Disease
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
