Category: HHS

US health experts divided on social media age restrictions

27 May 2023
Volume 401, Issue 10390 

WORLD REPORT  Some medical associations support restrictions on social media use to protect adolescent’s health, while others focus on making companies provide safer platforms. 

Laws intended to protect adolescents from the harms of social media are spreading across the USA but, among some of the nation’s leading medical and public health associations, there is not yet a consensus on limiting social media access for young people. Nearly two dozen states are considering legislation. Several have already enacted a patchwork of age restrictions and partial bans. [Continued here.]
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US plan to shield science from “inappropriate influence”

Volume 401, Issue 10375
11 February 2023 

 

WORLD REPORT  The Biden administration is launching a new initiative on scientific integrity in federal agencies following multiple lapses. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Just a week after Joe Biden was sworn in as president in January, 2021, he created a multi-agency Task Force on Scientific Integrity to restore “trust in government through scientific integrity and evidence-based policy making”…Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released A Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity and Practice, a follow-up to the task force’s 2022 recommendations that provides a blueprint for implementation. [Continued here.] …

Medicare considers expanding dental benefits for certain medical conditions

By Susan Jaffe, KHN  | October 17, 2022 | This story also ran on

Proposed changes in Medicare rules could soon pave the way for a significant expansion in Medicare-covered dental services, while falling short of the comprehensive benefits that many Democratic lawmakers have advocated.

That’s because, under current law, Medicare can pay for limited dental care only if it is medically necessary to safely treat another covered medical condition. In July, officials proposed adding conditions that qualify and sought public comment. Any changes could be announced in November and take effect as soon as January. The review by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services follows an unsuccessful effort by congressional Democrats to pass comprehensive Medicare dental coverage for all beneficiaries, a move that would require changes in federal law. As defeat appeared imminent, consumer and seniors’ advocacy groups along with dozens of lawmakers urged CMS to take independent action. [Continued on Kaiser Health News and CNN]

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“Chaos” for patients and providers after US abortion ruling

Volume 400, Issue 10346
9 July 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT  A patchwork of state laws replace abortion rights once guaranteed by Roe v Wade. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

The US Supreme Court’s bombshell decision overturning Roe v Wade on June 24, 2022, assures Americans that each state can choose whether and under what conditions its residents have a right to a safe and legal abortion. So far, the result is an incoherent and volatile jumble:16 states have severely restricted or banned the procedure and bans in ten more states are likely to take effect in a matter of weeks. [Continued here.]  

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Federal abortion rights end, but not legal challenges

Volume 400, Issue 10345
2 July 2022  

WORLD  REPORT  The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade is due to spark further court cases. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC. 
The Supreme Court’s momentous decision to abolish the half-century-old federal right to abortion not only rapidly reconfigures the political and legal landscape in the USA, threatening a host of other long-held personal freedoms. The seismic shift also ignites new legal battles within states that ban or severely restrict abortions, only 4 months before the mid-term elections that will establish which party controls Congress for the next 2 years.  Put simply, the ruling is “the legal equivalent of a nuclear bomb”, according to legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio and veteran Supreme Court observer, Nina Totenberg. [Continued here.] 

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Biden’s science adviser resigns over bullying

Volume 399, Issue 10326
19 February 2022

 

WORLD REPORT   Experts say that Eric Lander’s resignation should not affect the President’s plans to reboot the cancer moonshot project. Susan Jaffe reports.…

Medicare Patients Win the Right to Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage

By Susan Jaffe | KAISER HEALTH NEWS | January 28, 2022

A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Connecticut has likely ended an 11-year fight against a frustrating and confusing rule that left hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries without coverage for nursing home care, and no way to challenge a denial.

The Jan. 25 ruling, which came in response to a 2011 class-action lawsuit eventually joined by 14 beneficiaries against the Department of Health and Human Services, will guarantee patients the right to appeal to Medicare for nursing home coverage if they were admitted to a hospital as an inpatient but were switched to observation care, an outpatient service. [Full story in Kaiser Health News and Modern Healthcare.] 

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The next steps for US vaccine mandates

Volume 399, Issue 10323
28 January 2022 

 

WORLD REPORT   As the Supreme Court blocks one of the Biden Administration’s plans to raise COVID-19 vaccination rates but approves another, Susan Jaffe looks at the next steps.

President Joe Biden’s efforts to encourage the most reluctant Americans to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have hit one legal roadblock after another. About one in four adults have still not received either the two-dose or single regimen of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the path to greater vaccination uptake is shrinking as federal courts muddy his Administration’s pro-vaccine message, cases of infection driven by the Omicron variant continue to rise in many parts of the country, and the president’s popularity ratings fall. …In the first of two rulings on Jan 13, the Supreme Court decided 6–3 to block the Biden Administration’s mandate for private companies with more than 100 employees to require weekly COVID-19 tests for employees who have not been fully vaccinated. ,,,Yet in a pair of lawsuits the court heard along with the employer mandate cases, the court came to the opposite conclusion. In a 5–4 decision, they upheld the Biden Administration’s requirement of vaccination for 10·4 million workers at 76 000 health-care facilities that treat patients covered by the government’s Medicare or Medicaid health insurance.[Continued here.] 

 

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Chiquita Brooks-LaSure: innovative US federal health director

Volume 398, Issue 10300
14 August 2021

 

PROFILE  
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, President Joe Biden’s choice to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, presides over an agency with a US$1 trillion budget that provides health insurance to more than 154 million people. Tackling health-care inequities is one of her top priorities. “These disparities have long existed, but COVID-19 has illuminated them in a way that is really unprecedented”, she said. [Full story here.]

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US drug importation plan hits snag

Volume 397, Issue 10291
12 June 2021

WORLD REPORT The Biden administration says it has “no timeline” for deciding if states can import cheap drugs from Canada. 

President Joe Biden’s administration said last week that it won’t decide whether to allow states to import drugs from Canada anytime soon, if ever. Biden supported drug importation during the presidential campaign, as did his opponent, Donald Trump, to mitigate sky-rocketing drug costs in the USA. Americans pay more per capita for prescription drugs than any other country…. [Continued here.]

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US election 2020: the future of the Affordable Care Act

Volume 396, Number 10260     31 October 2020 

WORLD REPORT   President Donald Trump pledges to replace the Affordable Care Act while his Democratic opponent Joe Biden offers detailed proposals to improve it. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Since winning the presidency in 2016 in large part by promising to eliminate Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Donald Trump has promised more than a dozen times that his replacement plan would be ready soon. The plan would be released in 2 weeks, a White House spokeswoman said 2 months ago.

“We’re going to have a health-care plan that will be second to none”, Trump said in 2017. “It’s going to be great and the people will see that.” And at last week’s final presidential debate, he vowed “to terminate Obamacare, [and] come up with a brand new beautiful health care”.

A decade after the ACA—President Barack Obama’s signature achievement—became law, repealing and replacing Obamacare is again central to Trump’s re-election. And improving and expanding the law is a crucial part of the campaign of his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. [Continued here.]     

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Media reports reveal political interference at the US CDC

Volume 396, Number 10255

26 September 2020

 

WORLD REPORT  News accounts say that Trump administration officials wanted to edit and approve COVID-19 studies and publish guidance without the usual scientific review. Susan Jaffe reports.

After news stories about attempts by members of the Trump administration to manipulate COVID-19 reports published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and over-rule its scientists, one top official is taking a sudden leave of absence for health reasons. Another’s government contract has abruptly ended. The 2-month absence of Michael Caputo, chief spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), comes after he claimed that a CDC “resistance unit” seeks to undermine Trump. He and an adviser reportedly demanded the right to revise and approve COVID-19 studies published in the CDC’s highly respected Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report journal.  [Continued here.]…

US Supreme Court upholds abortion rights, for now

Volume 396, Number 10244

11 July 2020

 

WORLD REPORT The court’s decision means that Louisiana’s three abortion clinics will remain open. Susan Jaffe reports.

The US Supreme Court delivered the Trump administration’s third defeat in as many weeks when it overturned a Louisiana law requiring physicians who provide abortions to have local hospital-admitting privileges.

In an opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the court declared on June 29 that “enforcing the admitting privileges requirement would drastically reduce the number and geographic distribution of abortion providers, making it impossible for many women to obtain a safe, legal abortion in the State and imposing substantial obstacles on those who could”.  [Continued here.]…

LGBTQ discrimination in US health care under scrutiny

Volume 395    Number 10242     
27 June 2020                          
WORLD REPORT  A US Supreme Court ruling could undermine the Trump Administration’s plan to roll back some protections against sex discrimination. Susan Jaffe reports. 

The Trump administration suffered a major defeat last week a major defeat last week in the US Supreme Court, which could undermine its attempt to scrap protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) against sex discrimination. In a landmark decision on June 15, the court ruled that the Civil Rights Act protects gay and transgender workers from discrimination by their employers. But days later, Trump Administration officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalised a more permissive standard for discrimination in health care. [Continued here.]  

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Whether By Luck Or Safety Protocols, Some Nursing Homes Remain COVID-19 Free

BY SUSAN JAFFE  |  CONNECTICUT HEALTH INVESTIGATIVE TEAM   |  JUNE 15,2020           

The coronavirus has decimated many of the nation’s nursing homes, and elderly, chronically ill residents of these facilities account for 64% of the state’s 4,201 death toll. They are roughly 100 times more likely to die of the virus than other people in the state.

So, the fact that some 41 of Connecticut’s 214 nursing homes have managed to keep out the virus, according to an analysis by C-HIT, is both remarkable and mystifying. Did they just get lucky?

This article also ran on Connecticut Public Radio.

Administrators at several COVID-19-free facilities use the word “fortunate” to describe a situation they acknowledge could change at any time. [Continued here, with map and table of COVID-19 free nursing homes.]

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Medicare for All scrutinised in Democratic primaries

Volume 395       Number 10225     29 February 2020                          
WORLD REPORT  On March 3, 14 states will pick their nominees for the US presidential election. The feasability of a single payer insurance plan is a key issue. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
Anxiety about rising health-care costs— the top issue for Democratic voters, according to recent polls—propelled Bernie Sanders to the head of the pack in last week’s Democratic primary contest in Nevada. Of the six leading candidates vying for the party’s presidential nomination, Sanders, a Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist, has proposed the most radical solution for lowering medical bills and reaching universal coverage. His signature policy initiative, the Medicare for All single-payer programme, would eliminate private health insurance, including employment-based plans that cover about half of the US population. [Article compares Medicare for All and the public option proposal favoured by former Vice President Joe Biden; continued here]
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Will Trump snuff out e-cigarettes?

Volume 394       Number 10213     30 November 2019   
WORLD REPORT President Trump promised to ban flavoured e-cigarettes, but 11 weeks later, they are still on the shelves. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington. 
When US President Donald Trump announced a plan on Sept 11 to prohibit the sale of most flavoured electronic cigarettes, more than 450 people in the USA had a mysterious lung disease associated with vaping, and six had died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The ban would be finalised within 30 days, said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
The number of cases of the lung disease has since soared to 2290, as of Nov 20, in 49 states, Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. 47 e-cigarette smokers (vapers) have died, according to the CDC. However, as this report went to press, officials from the Trump administration would not disclose when the promised ban would be issued.
…The decision [to implement] a nationwide ban is up to President Trump. “It is a chain of command”, said Robert Califf, a professor of cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine and the FDA commissioner under Trump and former President Barack Obama. “The commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS]and the secretary reports to the president. FDA policies are de facto policies of the Executive Branch, so if the HHS secretary or president chooses to do so, they can intercede.”  [Continued here]  
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Home Health Care Providers Struggle With State Laws And Medicare Rules As Demand Rises

“We can send prescriptions to the pharmacy, including [for] narcotics,” says Marie Grosh, a geriatric advanced practice nurse practitioner and the owner of a medical house calls practice in a Cleveland suburb. “We can order lab work, x-rays, ultrasounds, EKGs [electrocardiagrams]; interpret them; and treat patients based on that. But we’re just not allowed to order home care—which is absurd.”

By SUSAN JAFFE  | Health Affairs | June 2019 | Volume 38, Number 8

When Christine Williams began working as a nurse practitioner some forty years ago in Detroit, Michigan, older adults who couldn’t manage on their own and had no family nearby and no doctor willing to make house calls had few options besides  winding up in a nursing home.

Not anymore.

Home check: Nurse practitioner Marie Grosh visits Leroy Zacharias at his home in a Cleveland suburb, He has Parkinson disease, and Grosh says he would be living in a nursing home if he couldn’t get medical care at home. (Photo by Lynn Ischay.)

“The move towards keeping seniors in their homes is a fast-galloping horse here,” says Williams, who settled in Cleveland, Ohio, more than a decade ago. “We don’t have space for them in long-term care [facilities], they don’t want to be in long-term care, and states don’t want to pay for long-term care. And everybody wants to live at home.”

But despite the growing desire for in-home medical care for older adults from nearly all quarters, seniors’ advocates and home health professionals claim that rules set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)  along with  state regulations have created an obstacle course for the very providers best positioned—and sometimes the only option—to offer that care.  [Continued here] …

US Planned Parenthood leadership shake-up

  Volume 394       Number 10195       27 July 2019   
WORLD REPORT Planned Parenthood’s board of directors decided to remove Dr. Leana Wen her after only 8 months, igniting a public debate about how the prominent women’s health-care organisation should best protect a woman’s right to abortion.[Continued here] 
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US Congress wants to take the surprise out of medical bills

Volume 393       Number 10191       29 June 2019   
WORLD REPORT A Texas high school teacher gets an unexpected hospital bill for $110,000 that his health insurance policy doesn’t cover. What can Congress do about it?   [Continued here]
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Trump administration limits fetal tissue research

Volume 393    Number 10189         15 June 2019   
WORLD REPORT    The move could threaten medical research advances, say scientists, as acquisition of new fetal tissue for research is substantially hindered. Susan Jaffe reports.              

“Many discoveries now in clinical practice and wide research use have come from human fetal tissue”, said Irving Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. “For these, there was—and still is—no substitute for human fetal tissue.”

…Anti-abortion groups praised the new policy, which would “separate federal research funding from the abortion industry”, said Melanie Israel, a research associate at the conservative Heritage Foundation… Yet how the new Trump research policy would reduce abortions is still unclear. “They are conflating pro-life issues and abortion with research”, said Jennifer Zeitzer, public affairs director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. “But there’s no evidence that women are getting abortions so they can donate fetal tissue for research.”  [Continued here.]  …

Legal battles over abortion heat up in the USA

Volume 393    Number 10184               11 May 2019               
WORLD REPORT   Changes to Title X, several legal challenges, and a change to the Supreme Court composition could mean drastic changes for access to abortion in the USA. Susan Jaffe reports.

“We are the department of life…from conception until natural death, through all of our programmes”, US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Alex Azar said earlier this year…. The government’s anti-abortion efforts have ignited lawsuits from Maine to California. Eventually, one or more of these cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court. With its newest arrival—Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination by Trump was championed by abortion opponents—the Supreme Court’s ideological balance has now shifted towards a conservative majority [raising] opponents’ hopes that a sympathetic court will diminish, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade...

Late last week, lawyers for the HHS appealed decisions by two federal court  judges in Oregon and Washington state to temporarily halt new administration rules that would limit the information about abortion services that federally funded health-care providers can tell their patients.    

“We are fighting back in the courts, we are fighting back in Congress and in state legislatures all across the country”, said Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen, noting that one in four women in the USA will have an abortion in their lifetime. “The public is with us when it comes to defending access to safe legal abortion, which people understand is part of the full spectrum of reproductive health care, which is health care.” [Continued here.]…

Doctors arrested in US crackdown on illegal opioids

Volume 393, Number 10182      

27 April 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The multiagency operation hit five states and led to the arrest of 60 people. Perpetrators face up to
50 years’ prison sentence if found guilty. Susan Jaffe reports.

Arrests of 31 doctors, pharmacists, and other health care professionals for allegedly prescribing and distributing illegal opioids affected some 28,000 of their patients. That’s why Department of Justice officials are working with state health departments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services to help patients by “… bringing enforcement and [opioid addiction] treatment closer together…than ever before,” says Benjamin Glassman, the US attorney for the southern district of Ohio. [Continued here.]
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US lawmakers seek cuts in prescription drug prices

 Volume 393, Number 10175      

 9 March 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   A committee brought together Senators and drug company representatives to discuss why drug pricing in the USA is so high, but little progress was made, Susan Jaffe reports.

A much-publicized Trump Administration proposal allows — not requires —  pharmaceutical companies to pass large rebates on to Medicare patients. Savings as much as 30 percent for seniors depend on companies’ voluntarily cutting prices but several top drug makers tell Senate committee they can’t promise to do so. [Continued here.]
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CMS lost $84M in two years for ineligible nursing home stays

     IG investigators said such improper payments are accumulating year after year.

By Susan Jaffe  | Modern Healthcare | February 20, 2019

The CMS pays millions of dollars a year to nursing homes for taking care of older adults who don’t qualify for coverage, according to an investigation by HHS’ inspector general.

The IG’s report, released Wednesday, includes steps the CMS should take to fix the problem; but in a written response, CMS Administrator Seema Verma rejected some key recommendations. [Continued here.]…