Health

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

New legislation in the California state house is seeking to end surprise hospital bills that catch unwitting patients with expensive out-of-network insurance costs for emergency care. Earlier this year, Vox’s Sarah Kliff reported on San Francisco woman Nina Dang and... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress expressed outrage Wednesday during hearings on Capitol Hill at the rising cost and government inaction in cleaning up the nation’s nuclear waste. Some lawmakers were reacting to a Government Accountability Office report released this week... Read More

San Francisco could become the first city in the United States in which large commercial property owners use only renewable energy under a plan unveiled by Mayor London Breed earlier this week. She and city supervisors Vallie Brown and Ahsha... Read More

A federal court ruling last week set a precedent for property rights to cannabis products in the quickly growing marijuana industry. U.S. District Judge William Martinez, an Obama appointee who presides in Colorado, ruled that cannabinoid formulations can be considered... Read More

Both Social Security and Medicare are on unstable financial footing, and lawmakers need to act sooner rather than later to shore up America’s bedrock retirement programs and phase in needed changes, the trustees of both programs said in reports released... Read More

Bipartisan legislation enacting a long sought after drought plan for seven states in the Colorado River basin has been sent to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature. Senator Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Representative Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., fast-tracked passage... Read More

WASHINGTON - Residents of Appalachian states warned about severe health and environmental consequences from renewed mountaintop coal mining during a congressional hearing Tuesday. Lawmakers called the hearing to address concerns raised by Trump administration policies to loosen environmental restrictions on... Read More

A robust and important health policy discussion occurred on Capitol Hill yesterday with lawmakers on both sides of aisle appearing to reach a rare consensus on the problems of countless Americans who have been surprised with expensive out-of-network medical bills.... Read More

Envision Healthcare is a national physician-led organization of clinical professionals who work alongside hospitals, health systems and insurance companies. A leading national provider of emergency medicine services across the United States, Envision's emergency medicine and hospital medicine clinicians treated more... Read More

President Donald Trump appeared to backtrack Monday night on his renewed push for a Republican health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. Taking a break from lambasting congressional Democrats via Twitter for their demands to see Special Counsel... Read More

New Hampshire will receive an additional $11.9 million to address the state's opioid crisis thanks to the willingness of the Granite State's congressional delegation to reach across the aisle and seek bipartisan support for the infusion of federal funding. New... Read More

A federal judge this week struck down a Trump administration plan that could have required Medicaid recipients to work or volunteer as a condition of receiving subsidized health care. At least 15 states were planning their own work for health... Read More

The Blue Dog Coalition on Wednesday threw its support behind two bipartisan bills that aim to lower prescription drug costs and increase transparency in the drug pricing system. The coalition is a House caucus of moderate and fiscally responsible Democrats.... Read More

Less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans shunned the so-called Green New Deal, House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a new bill, the Climate Action Now Act, aiming to hold the Trump administration to the United States' original commitments under the... Read More

The Trump administration told a federal appeals court Monday night that it believes the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down as unconstitutional. In a letter filed in the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, the Justice Department said it... Read More

Last week, Representative Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., introduced The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019 (H.R. 1763), which she and her bipartisan cosponsors say will take definitive steps toward reducing nationwide physician shortages, with an emphasis in rural areas. The bill... Read More

Representative Charlie Crist, D-Fla., and Don Young, R-Alaska, have introduced the bipartisan Fairness in Federal Drug Testing Under State Laws Act (H.R.1687). The bill would protect veterans' cannabis treatment options and their ability to be employed by the federal government.... Read More

This week, U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced bipartisan legislation to repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act known as the “Cadillac Tax,” which taxes high-cost health insurance plans and impacts middle-class health benefits. In... Read More

On Tuesday, Energy and Commerce Committee leaders wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding a briefing from the company following a consumer complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission that personal health information of certain Facebook users who were participating in... Read More

Measles may not be the only medical outbreak individuals must cautiously avoid on the streets. Syphilis (Treponema pallidum), a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease (STD), is making a comeback across the US. Furthermore, a congenital form of the infection is... Read More

This week, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), reintroduced the Survivors’ Access to Supportive Care Act (SASCA), a bipartisan, bicameral bill to help improve and... Read More

A decision last week by a federal judge in a Maryland lawsuit is expected to influence an appeal by other states that seek to protect their health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. The state of Maryland filed a... Read More

A number of provisions in the First Step Act, signed into law by President Trump last month, are going to make the lives of federally incarcerated females a little less burdensome. The bill, which passed through the... Read More

Most epidemics start with a patient zero. Here in northwest Illinois, the opioid epidemic features a doctor zero. About 10 miles west of Dixon, up Route 2 and following the Rock River, under the shadow cast by the husk... Read More

For a long time, the police of Ronald Reagan’s hometown did their best to arrest their way out of their drug problem. It became a war of attrition — and the opioids won. A few years ago, Lee County authorities ... Read More

Opioids have overwhelmed rural Illinois. Desperate, the cops in Ronald Reagan’s hometown have stopped arresting people and started getting them help. In an exclusive series, The Well News looks at “Safe Passage,” a... Read More

Rx Drug Spending Slowest Growing Component of 2017 Health Care Expenses. Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2017 National Health Expenditure (NHE) data, detailing the official estimates of total health care spending in the United States... Read More

At first, it seemed like just a bad cold, with a fever that came and went. Then one day, when Scarlett Camburn woke from her nap, the Havertown, Pa., toddler was unable to move her right arm. Panicked, parents Andrea ... Read More

In the final stretch before Election Day, a new survey by Ipsos and Consumers for Quality Care (CQC) found that voters are deeply frustrated by unpredictable costs and the lack of transparency in health care. Health care consistently factors into... Read More