Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly pledged to protect and improve health services for Native Americans — whether speaking during his late-January Senate confirmation hearing or an April trip to Arizona, where he met with tribal leaders. In some ways, he has. When layoffs were set to hit the Indian…
The Trump administration’s cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic. “The administration’s actions are gutting our deterrence from…
By KELLI DEETER I was intrigued by Daniel Stone’s piece on THCB in May titled “Biden’s cancer diagnosis as a teaching moment”. In my practice as a board-certified nurse practitioner, I am frequently asked about prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing by my male patients. Nursing practice and medical practice often get blurred or lumped together….
Esther Bejarano’s son was 11 months old when asthma landed him inhh the hospital. She didn’t know what had triggered his symptoms — neither she nor her husband had asthma — but she suspected it was the pesticides sprayed on the agricultural fields near her family’s home. Pesticides are a known contributor to asthma and…
That is the topic of a JMCP Viewpoint by Sean Sullivan, Jens Grueger, Aidan Sullivan, and Scott Ramsey. Some excerpts: The Budget Lab at Yale University projected that a 25% ad valorem tariff would increase medication costs by an “average of around $600 per year per household in the United States.”3 Tariffs can also create supply…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A…
ST. LOUIS — Violent crime was already trending down from a covid-era spike when President Donald Trump presented a picture of unbridled crime in America on the campaign trail in 2024. Now his administration has eliminated about $500 million in grants to organizations that buttress public safety, including many working to prevent gun violence. In…
By KIM BELLARD So the House has passed their “big, beautiful bill,” by the narrowest of margins. Crucial to the bill are large savings from Medicaid, which in past years Republicans would have taken some glee from but now they are careful to explain away as just cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” having finally realized…
That is the title of a new paper published in the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) with co-authors Jacob Fajnor, Shurui Zhang, and Donald Nichols. The abstract is below. Objectives: To (1) develop a metric that quantitatively measures the risk that utilization management (UM) policies pose to patients and (2) measure the relationship between…
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to block a California law from taking effect next year that will require nursing homes to have a 96-hour backup power supply, potentially giving the industry a reprieve from having to spend over $1 billion in capital investments. The Democratic governor tucked the suspension into his budget update to address a…