Voters in Missouri and Nebraska approved ballot measures Tuesday that guarantee paid leave for sick workers. Alaska voters seem poised to pass a similar measure that has a wide lead. These two Republican-led states join 15 others and D.C. — largely Democratic-controlled places — in requiring some employers to provide workers with paid sick leave. Proponents cheered…
A new federal watchdog audit is ratcheting up pressure on government officials to crack down on billions of dollars in overcharges linked to Medicare Advantage home visits. But so far, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has rejected a recommendation from the Health and Human Services Inspector General to limit payments stemming from house…
California this year took the final step in opening Medi-Cal, its Medicaid program, to every eligible resident regardless of immigration status. It’s a significant expansion for an already massive safety net program. Medi-Cal’s annual spending now stands at $157 billion, serving about 15 million low-income residents, more than a third of Californians. Of those, about…
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Friday November 8 are THCB regular writer and ponderer of odd juxtapositions Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard); Principal of Worksite Health Advisors Brian Klepper (@bklepper1); patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@mlmillenson); and digital health investment banker Steven Wardell (@StevenWardell). There may well be a discussion about an election….
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) allows the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to negotiate drug prices. However, CMS can only negotiated drug prices 9 years after drug approval for small molecules and 13 years after approval for large molecules. Why the difference? Do biologic treatments produce superior health benefits for patients? This is the…
Voters backed abortion rights in seven of the 10 states where the issue appeared on ballots Tuesday, including in Missouri, among the first states to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At first glance, the nation’s patchwork of abortion…
To discover how millions in opioid settlement funds are being spent in Idaho, you can visit the state attorney general’s website, which hosts 91 documents from state and local entities getting the money. What you’ll find is a lot of bureaucratese. Nearly three years ago, these jurisdictions signed an agreement promising annual reports “specifying the…
Natalie Holt sees reminders nearly everywhere of the serious toll a years-long syphilis outbreak has taken in South Dakota. Scrambling to tamp down the spread of the devastating disease, public health officials are blasting messages to South Dakotans on billboards and television, urging people to get tested. Holt works in Aberdeen, a city of about…
That is the question posted by a recent paper by Li and Dor (2024). However, they define competition not just by the number of community health center (CHC) competitors or market concentration (e.g., Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, HHI) but also the quality of care provided by their competitors. A key methodological question is how this should be…
If President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Senate try to roll back reproductive health rights or pursue a widely prophesied national abortion ban, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is poised to challenge him. Two years ago, Bonta, a Democrat who heads the state justice department, directed his staff to draft legal analyses against a possible…