Health

ST. LOUIS — The future of Missouri’s only abortion clinic was in the hands of a St. Louis Circuit judge Thursday after attorneys for Planned Parenthood asked for a temporary restraining order to prevent its state license from expiring at... Read More

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Thursday that he will sign a strict new abortion law barring the procedure once a heartbeat is detectable -- a point that comes before many women realize they are pregnant. In a written statement,... Read More

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s only abortion provider could stop performing the procedure as early as this week. Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region runs the state’s only abortion clinic, located in the Central West... Read More

CHICAGO — After a lengthy and emotional debate, the Illinois House passed a controversial abortion rights bill Tuesday that opponents characterized as extreme but supporters say is necessary to protect women as several states enact more restrictive laws. The bill... Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the portion of an Indiana law signed by Vice President Mike Pence during his tenure as governor that requires fetal remains from abortions be buried or cremated. The ruling partially reversed an earlier... Read More

For the second time in five days, a conservative Republican member of the House has blocked a long overdue $19 billion disaster bill. Representative Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said that if Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders had thought the... Read More

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge on Friday to block an Alabama law that bans nearly all abortions and makes performing the procedure a felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison. The... Read More

WASHINGTON — On Memorial Day 2013, Coleen Bowman was a new widow. Her husband had died four months earlier and she wanted support to face that first military holiday of remembrance. So she registered for TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program... Read More

A bipartisan coalition of House members on Thursday released their outline of the Protecting People from Surprise Medical Bills Act, legislation intended to protect patients from unfair and expensive surprise medical bills. “For too many middle-class families, receiving an unexpected... Read More

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed an executive order Thursday permitting full-time state government employees to take up to eight weeks off after adopting or having a child. Executive Order 95 also provides 4 weeks of paid parental leave to... Read More

A majority of American voters believe the U.S. Supreme Court was right in 1973 when it ruled in Roe v. Wade that women have a constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion, and most also believe the current generation of justices... Read More

Representatives Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., have introduced bipartisan legislation to address chronic flooding that places Veterans Affairs medical facilities at risk on a regular basis. The bill the representatives filed Tuesday, called the VA Community Infrastructure Act,... Read More

Delivering remarks on surprise medical billing, which is a concern that has drawn bipartisan interest, President Donald Trump waded into another high-profile health issue: making sure insurance protects people who have preexisting health conditions. “We will always protect patients with... Read More

This week, U.S. Representatives Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation to improve primary care options for individuals with high-deductible health insurance plans. H.R. 2774, the Primary Care Patient Protection Act of 2019,... Read More

DALLAS — With opioid-related deaths on the rise each year in the U.S., Texas has become the first state to offer a life-saving overdose drug online, freeing users of the stigma associated with drug use. Last week, Texas began offering... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition has endorsed H.R. 2483, also known as the Fentanyl Sanctions Act, which aims to pressure the Chinese government to honor its commitment to make all forms of fentanyl illegal and provide the United States with more... Read More

The health care debate has Democrats on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail facing renewed pressure to make clear where they stand: Are they for “Medicare for All”? Or will they take up the push to protect the Affordable... Read More

WASHINGTON — Most states are keeping a close eye on opioid overdose deaths, but they may need to start focusing on cocaine and other stimulants as well. It turns out that the same lethal drug that has been driving the... Read More

For the first time in history, renewable energy surpassed coal earlier this month as a source of electricity generation in the United States, the Brookings Institution reported Wednesday. The paper underlying the report attributes this remarkable development to U.S. municipalities... Read More

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Tuesday co-sponsored by Representative Elaine Luria to extend disability benefits to Vietnam-era Navy veterans who have fought for years to prove they were exposed to the chemical herbicide Agent Orange. Luria, a... Read More

This week, U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and U.S. Representative David McKinley, R-W.V., introduced the Clean Up Our Neighborhoods Act of 2019, authorizing the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to make grants to states to eliminate residential and commercial... Read More

LOS ANGELES — Four years ago, a public health nightmare unfolded in California: A person with measles visited Disneyland during the holiday season, likely exposing thousands to the highly contagious disease. Over the next few weeks, more than 145 people... Read More

WASHINGTON — Wary of the political risks and practical difficulties of “Medicare for All” proposals that would move every American into a government health plan, Democrats increasingly are embracing more modest plans to use Medicare to expand insurance coverage. This... Read More

New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation last week adopted the final elements of a regulatory regime intended to end carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants in the state by the end of 2020. Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo first announced... Read More

PHILADELPHIA — Even as advocates in U.S. cities have struggled to open supervised-injection sites to help stop fatal overdoses, a clandestine site has been operating somewhere in the country since 2014. Researchers studying the site, where people can inject drugs... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — Kim had been wine tasting with a friend in Sonoma, Calif. They got into an argument in the car that night and Kim thought someone was following them. She was utterly convinced. And she had to get... Read More

PORTLAND, Ore. — It was early morning in an operating theater at Providence Hospital in Portland, Ore. A middle-aged woman lay on the operating table, wrapped in blankets. Surgeons were about to cut out a cancerous growth in her stomach.... Read More

“Seizing our newborn infants, Blighting their lives with pain; Filling their veins with poison, Tainting each tender brain” So go the lyrics of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination Hymn, circulated not by the modern-day anti-vaccine band the Refusers but by the Anti-Vaccination... Read More

WASHINGTON — Toward the end of 2018, the Trump administration seemed to be marching briskly toward its goal of requiring able-bodied adults in Medicaid to prove they had jobs to participate in the public health plan for the poor. But... Read More

WASHINGTON — It’s increasingly likely that someone you know has the opioid overdose rescue drug naloxone in their pocket or medicine cabinet. In fact, a new mobile app, NaloxoFind, will tell you whether anyone nearby is carrying the lifesaving drug.... Read More