https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/26/17587090/2018-elections-house-preexisting-conditions-trump
"As much as any other issue, women’s health will be on the ballot in the 2018 midterm elections. It’s almost hard to remember now, but in the days before the Affordable Care Act was in place, health insurance companies routinely charged women in America more than men. Some women were deemed uninsurable because they had preexisting conditions like pregnancy or a breast cancer diagnosis. Now Obamacare makes that illegal — but Donald Trump’s election endangered those protections."
7/29/18
How the Hospitals Serving Trump Voters Are Closing—And He’s Letting It Happen
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/rural-hospital-closures-trump-republicans/
"What’s more, rural communities tend to be both poorer and sicker than their urban counterparts. According to US census data from 2016, 46 percent of the country’s rural population uses a form of government insurance, compared with 36 percent of the urban population. CDC data shows that rural areas have higher death rates from cancer, heart disease, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke than urban areas do. Infant mortality rates are roughly 20 percent higher in rural counties than they are in large urban counties. But there’s another crisis linked to hospital closings: job losses. In many rural communities, the hospital is the largest employer. Brad Gibbens, a researcher at the University of North Dakota, estimates that when one shuts its doors, up to 25 percent of the surrounding region’s economy disappears. A cascading shortage of physicians and other health care professionals soon follows. So why are so many hospitals closing? Carole Myers, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville who studies health care policy, says medical facilities in rural areas have long struggled thanks to sparse populations and high poverty rates. But the situation is significantly worse in the 17 states that have not joined Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, most of them heavily rural. Those states have a higher rate of uninsured people, which means hospitals—which can’t turn anyone away from the emergency room—have to provide more uncompensated care. According to a recent study from the Colorado School of Public Health, hospitals in states that did not expand Medicaid are six times more likely to close than hospitals in states that did, because they see more uninsured patients and provide more free care."
"What’s more, rural communities tend to be both poorer and sicker than their urban counterparts. According to US census data from 2016, 46 percent of the country’s rural population uses a form of government insurance, compared with 36 percent of the urban population. CDC data shows that rural areas have higher death rates from cancer, heart disease, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke than urban areas do. Infant mortality rates are roughly 20 percent higher in rural counties than they are in large urban counties. But there’s another crisis linked to hospital closings: job losses. In many rural communities, the hospital is the largest employer. Brad Gibbens, a researcher at the University of North Dakota, estimates that when one shuts its doors, up to 25 percent of the surrounding region’s economy disappears. A cascading shortage of physicians and other health care professionals soon follows. So why are so many hospitals closing? Carole Myers, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville who studies health care policy, says medical facilities in rural areas have long struggled thanks to sparse populations and high poverty rates. But the situation is significantly worse in the 17 states that have not joined Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, most of them heavily rural. Those states have a higher rate of uninsured people, which means hospitals—which can’t turn anyone away from the emergency room—have to provide more uncompensated care. According to a recent study from the Colorado School of Public Health, hospitals in states that did not expand Medicaid are six times more likely to close than hospitals in states that did, because they see more uninsured patients and provide more free care."
7/22/18
HHS Plans to Delete 20 Years of Critical Medical Guidelines Next Week
https://www.thedailybeast.com/hhs-plans-to-delete-20-years-of-critical-medical-guidelines-next-week?ref=home?ref=home
"The Trump Administration is planning to eliminate a vast trove of medical guidelines that for nearly 20 years has been a critical resource for doctors, researchers and others in the medical community. Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the database is known as the National Guideline Clearinghouse [NGC], and it’s scheduled to “go dark,” in the words of an official there, on July 16. Medical guidelines like those compiled by AHRQ aren’t something laypeople spend much time thinking about, but experts like Valerie King, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research at the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University, said the NGC is perhaps the most important repository of evidence-based research available. “Guideline.gov was our go-to source, and there is nothing else like it in the world,” King said, referring to the URL at which the database is hosted, which the agency says receives about 200,000 visitors per month. “It is a singular resource,” King added."
"The Trump Administration is planning to eliminate a vast trove of medical guidelines that for nearly 20 years has been a critical resource for doctors, researchers and others in the medical community. Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the database is known as the National Guideline Clearinghouse [NGC], and it’s scheduled to “go dark,” in the words of an official there, on July 16. Medical guidelines like those compiled by AHRQ aren’t something laypeople spend much time thinking about, but experts like Valerie King, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research at the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University, said the NGC is perhaps the most important repository of evidence-based research available. “Guideline.gov was our go-to source, and there is nothing else like it in the world,” King said, referring to the URL at which the database is hosted, which the agency says receives about 200,000 visitors per month. “It is a singular resource,” King added."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)