Trump鈥檚 DOJ Accuses Medicare Advantage Insurers of Paying 鈥楰ickbacks鈥 to Brokers
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Bill With Billions in Health Program Cuts Passes House
The House narrowly passed a budget reconciliation bill, including billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy along with billions of dollars in cuts to health program spending. But the Senate is expected to make major changes to the measure before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature. This week鈥檚 panelists are Julie Rovner of 麻豆女优 Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.
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Republicans Aim To Punish States That Insure Unauthorized Immigrants
A GOP tax-and-spending bill the House approved Thursday would slash federal Medicaid reimbursement for states that offer health coverage to immigrants without legal status.
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Trump鈥檚 Team Cited Safety in Limiting Covid Shots. Patients, Health Advocates See More Risk.
The FDA will encourage new clinical trials on the widely used vaccines before approving them for children and healthy adults. The requirements could cost drugmakers tens of millions of dollars and are likely to leave boosters largely out of reach for hundreds of millions of Americans this fall.
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Volunteers Help Tornado-Hit St. Louis Amid Wait for Federal Aid
As St. Louis deals with more than $1.6 billion in estimated property damage from the May 16 tornado, locals are pouring in to help the hard-hit area of North St. Louis. It鈥檚 unclear if residents can count on federal support as they rebuild.
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Call Centers Replaced Many Doctors鈥 Receptionists. Now, AI Is Coming for Call Centers.
Artificial intelligence products with lifelike voices are being marketed to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions, and help triage patients. Soon, many patients might initiate contact with the health system by speaking not with a human but with AI.
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Trump Won鈥檛 Force Medicaid To Cover GLP-1s for Obesity. A Few States Are Doing It Anyway.
Late last year, South Carolina Medicaid approved a class of medications known as GLP-1s to treat obesity, placing it among the few state programs covering these effective but expensive drugs. But access remains limited, even for patients covered by Medicaid, because of stringent prerequisites that must be satisfied before starting the drug.
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3 Things To Watch on Mental Health in Trump鈥檚 Early Budget Proposals
President Donald Trump鈥檚 budget office says he鈥檒l continue to fund the new 988 suicide prevention hotline, but documents sent to Congress offer clues 鈥 amid some mixed messages 鈥 about the administration鈥檚 approach to two pressing public health issues: mental health and addiction.
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This News Might Ruin Your Appetite 鈥 And Summer
Fresh studies expose a gap in the FDA鈥檚 assessments of foods: Widely used additives could damage the mix of bacteria in your gut, causing health problems.
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Trump Exaggerates Speed and Certainty of Prescription Drug Price Reductions
According to the timeline in the May 12 executive order, prescription drug price reductions would not happen “almost immediately,鈥 but rather could take months or years. And extending the savings to Americans outside federal health insurance programs such as Medicare would likely require congressional action.
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How Trump Aims To Slash Federal Support for Research, Public Health, and Medicaid聽
One thing experts agree on: The damage from the funding cuts will be varied and immense.
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Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies
More than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2021, including a South Dakota hospital that serves small towns, farming communities, and a Native American reservation. Patients there now travel at least an hour to give birth.
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Trump鈥檚 DOJ Accuses Medicare Advantage Insurers of Paying 鈥楰ickbacks鈥 for Primo Customers
The Department of Justice alleges that several major health insurers paid brokerages 鈥渉undreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks鈥 to get agents to steer consumers into their Medicare Advantage plans, allegations the insurers strongly dispute.
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Housing, Nutrition in Peril as Trump Pulls Back Medicaid Social Services
About half of states have broadened Medicaid, the state-federal low-income health care program, to pay for social services such as housing and nutritional support. The Trump administration, however, views these experiments as distractions from the core mission to provide health care.
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Journalists Unpack Drug Prices, Threats to Medicaid, and the Fluoridation of Water
麻豆女优 Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here鈥檚 a collection of their appearances.
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Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Limbo聽
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Pharmacists Stockpile Most Common Drugs on Chance of Targeted Trump Tariffs
While Big Pharma seems ready to weather the tariff storm, independent pharmacists and makers of generic drugs 鈥 which account for 90% of U.S. prescriptions 鈥 see trouble ahead for patients.
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In Bustling NYC Federal Building, HHS Offices Are Eerily Quiet
Public health experts and advocates say that Health and Human Services regional offices, like the one in New York City, form the connective tissue between the federal government and locally based services.
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Even Where Abortion Is Still Legal, Many Brick-and-Mortar Clinics Are Closing
Some clinics that provide abortions are closing, even in states where voters have passed some of the nation’s broadest abortion protections. It鈥檚 happening in places like New York, Illinois, and Michigan, as reproductive health care faces new financial pressures.
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Californians Receiving In-Home Care Fear Medicaid Cuts Will Spell End to Independent Living
Bay Area senior Carol Crooks doesn鈥檛 know where congressional Republicans will land on Medicaid cuts as they look to fund a tax bill, but her health has already deteriorated as she worries about losing the help she needs to remain in her Oakland apartment 鈥 and out of a nursing home.
