Saturday, Nov 23rd
Last update08:46:49 AM GMT
Health Glance
A federal appeals court has upheld an Indiana law banning the use of puberty blockers and hormones for transgender children under the age of 18, one of numerous such laws passed by Republican-controlled states.
The 2-1 decision from the seventh US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday comes as the US supreme court prepares to hear a challenge to a similar law in Tennessee, which may ultimately determine whether all such state laws around the country can be enforced.
Millions of Americans are at risk of losing health coverage in 2025 under Donald Trump’s forthcoming administration.
More than 20 million Americans rely on the individual private health insurance market for healthcare, private insurance which is subsidized by the federal government.
These subsidies, programs that help lower the cost of health insurance premiums, increased the amount of assistance available to people who want to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare as a signature piece of legislation during Barack Obama’s administration.
Former President Donald Trump’s pending return to the White House could alter the very nature of Medicare, the nearly 60-year-old federal program.
More than half of Medicare beneficiaries are already enrolled in plans, called Medicare Advantage, run by commercial insurers. Based on Trump’s campaign positions and previous policies, that proportion is now expected to grow – perhaps dramatically – for a number of reasons
Trump and many congressional Republicans have already taken steps to aggressively promote Medicare Advantage. And Project 2025, a political wish list produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation for the next presidency, calls for making insurer-run plans the default enrollment option for Medicare.
Former President Donald Trump’s election victory and coming return to the White House will likely bring changes that scale back the nation’s public health insurance programs — potentially increasing the uninsured rate, while imposing new barriers to abortion and other reproductive care.
The reverberations will be felt far beyond Washington, D.C., and could include an erosion of the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections, the imposition of work requirements in Medicaid and funding cuts to the safety net insurance, and challenges to federal agencies that safeguard public health.
Abortion restrictions may tighten nationwide with a possible effort to restrict the mailing of abortion medications.
A group of health care providers and two Louisiana women who were denied abortion care are suing state officials to block a new law that makes common pregnancy medications controlled dangerous substances, arguing the law is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs include Birthmark Doula Collective in New Orleans, Dr. Emily Holt, a New Orleans family medicine physician, Shreveport pharmacist Kaylee Self, who is pregnant, and Nancy Davis and Kaitlyn Joshua, two Baton Rouge women who were denied abortion care in 2022 after Louisiana’s near-total ban took effect.
Lift Louisiana and the Lawyering Project, which both support reproductive rights, filed the suit on Oct. 31 in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge. It names the state, Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy and Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners as defendants.
Just days after Texas banned abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, a woman died after doctors in the state delayed treating her miscarriage for 40 hours, ProPublica reported on Wednesday.
Experts told ProPublica that the September 2021 death of Josseli Barnica, a 28-year-old mother, was “preventable”. Barnica is the third woman reported by ProPublica to have died in recent years after being unable to access abortion legally or having her medical care delayed.
Although US abortion bans – which more than a dozen states have enacted in the two years since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade – technically permit the procedure in medical emergencies, doctors across the country have said that the laws are worded so vaguely that they don’t know when they can legally intervene. Instead, many physicians say they have been forced to wait until a patient is on the brink of death – then attempt to pull them back.
As we approach a new presidency, a new Congress and new leaders in our health agencies, I am concerned that the sense of urgency about COVID-19 appears to have faded. The disease has not been discussed during the election season, even though it is an ongoing and developing public health threat.
I believe this is a dangerous mindset. The reality is that COVID-19 remains a unique and deadly threat for many people — it is not just another respiratory virus, and should not be treated as such by our leaders.
I am the CEO and co-founder of biopharmaceutical InflaRx. But I am also an intensive care physician and researcher active in the immunology field. I have worked in the ICU. The reality is clear: We may be done with COVID-19, but COVID-19 is not done with us.
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