Vaccines against COVID-19, the seasonal flu and RSV are our best chance of preventing a winter surge

  As cold and flu season ramps up, health care experts are once again on high alert for the possibility of a tripledemic, or a surge brought on by the respiratory viruses that cause COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. The good news is that this year, health officials have more tools at their disposal to combat them.

  Americans ages 6 months and older are eligible to receive the newest COVID-19 vaccine and the annual flu vaccine. In addition, this year the Food and Drug Administration approved the first vaccine against RSV for use in late pregnancy and adults 60 years of age and older.

New restrictions on abortion care will have psychological harms – here’s what research shows will happen in post-Roe America

  “I’m struggling a bit this morning,” a client of mine stated at the start of our session the morning of June 24, 2022. “I just heard on the news about the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There was so much for me to process I had to turn it off.”

  While this client did not have personal experience with elective abortion, she had a complicated reproductive history that included a recent pregnancy in which she was unsure if the baby would survive. In our session that day, she recognized how privileged she was to have had a medical team that communicated with her about all available options and potential outcomes for her and the baby. Most importantly, she acknowledged the significance of having a say in the decisions about her reproductive care.

5 strategies employers can use to address workplace mental health issues

  COVID-19 has inflicted a serious mental health toll on many U.S. workers.

  Like other Americans, workers have lost loved ones, connections to friends and family, and the comforts of their daily social rhythms. The pandemic has also imposed a unique set of stresses on workers, including the risks of losing their job, rapid adjustments to working from home, and additional workloads. And workers on the front line must face an increased risk of infection and increasingly aggressive customer interactions.

Medical technologies have been central to US pandemic response – but social behaviors matter just as much

  Before COVID-19, there was tuberculosis. Twentieth century British physician Thomas McKeown controversially proposed that the sharp declines in infectious disease death rates in the late 1900s were due to improved economic and social conditions – not medical and public health measures like antibiotics and improved sanitation.

  His theory was later partly discredited. But the central question behind it – whether medical interventions or social factors make the biggest impact on infectious diseases – remains relevant in the current pandemic.

The next attack on the Affordable Care Act may cost you free preventive health care

  Many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place following its third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision left widely supported policies in place, like ensuring coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan, and removal of annual and lifetime benefit limits.

  But the hits keep coming. One of the most popular benefits offered by the ACA, free preventive care through many employer-based and marketplace insurance plans, is under attack by another legal domino, Kelley v. Becerra. As University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley sees it, “[t]his time, the law’s opponents stand a good chance of succeeding.”

Hospitals often outsource important services to companies that prioritize profit over patients

  Hospitals have long embraced the practice of outsourcing some services to specialized companies. Much of this outsourcing is for nonclinical tasks such as laundry, information technology, and cybersecurity, and outsourcing those types of services can boost efficiency and quality.

  However, over the past few years, there has been a fast-growing trend of hospitals outsourcing clinically relevant services – like anesthesiology and emergency medicine – to companies separate from the hospital. When that happens, hospitals relinquish some of the control they have over quality of care.

How racism in the US health system hinders care and costs lives of African Americans

  As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the virus hit African Americans disproportionately hard. African Americans are still contracting the illness – and dying from it – at rates twice as high as would be expected based on their share of the population.

  In Michigan, African Americans are only 14% of the population but account for one-third of the state’s COVID-19 cases and 40% of its deaths.

  In some states, the disparities are even more stark. Wisconsin and Missouri have infection and mortality rates three or more times greater than expected based on their share of the population.

Structural changes are needed to address coronavirus

  Responding to and properly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic will require structural reforms that fix underlying problems in America’s economy and democracy. Structural reforms are necessary to protect public health, mitigate the risks of future outbreaks, and ensure that the eventual recovery benefits most Americans.

Universal coverage, single-payer, ‘Medicare for All’: What does it all mean for you?

  Collectively, health care is our biggest industry. And, health care has long been one of the most politically contested issues. Partisan wrangling over health reform has perhaps been the most acrimonious issue in Americans politics, exemplified by the failed Clinton health reform efforts in the 1990s and the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

  Most Americans are befuddled by it, and the political debate surrounding it only makes it more confusing.

How states are combating Trump’s ACA sabotage

  Following his failure to legislatively repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Donald Trump and his administration have waged a campaign to undermine and sabotage the landmark health care law. The administration has employed numerous strategies, including expanding access to short-term junk plans; eliminating cost-saving reinsurance programs; and cutting enrollment outreach funding. The Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) has been tracking these efforts to undermine enrollment, force coverage loses, and increase the cost of care for millions of Americans.

  The Trump administration and congressional Republicans delivered a blow to the ACA in its repeal of the act’s individual coverage mandate, which was included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. With that provision of the law repealed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 19 other Republican state attorneys general, sued the federal government, arguing that the remainder of the law would now be unconstitutional. In 2018, a federal district court judge sided with the plaintiffs, ruling the ACA unconstitutional in a decision that is now being appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The fate of the ACA remains uncertain the near future, as the case is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court regardless of the 5th Circuit’s decision.

Racism is killing black Americans

  Racism affects every aspect of American life – none more so than our medical system.

  Numerous studies over the years have laid bare the gap in health outcomes between minority groups and white Americans.

  African Americans have a lower life expectancy than white people. They are more likely to suffer and die from chronic conditions like kidney, cardiovascular, and lung disease.

For many rural Southerners, no health care to lose

  Last week, the Senate took a series of votes aimed at repealing parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Under any of the plans put forth by Republicans – all voted down thus far – millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  But in places like southwestern Virginia, many simply have no health insurance — or access to medical care — to lose.

  Last weekend, more than 2,000 people in Wise, Virginia, waited in long lines and sweltering heat for basic health services from the Remote Area Medical Expedition. At a county fairground over a period of three days, volunteer doctors pulled teeth, performed chest X-rays, tested insulin levels, and handed out eyeglasses to people too poor or too sick to get health care any other way.

Senate repeal bill will increase average costs for exchange enrollees by $2,294

  Now that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), it is clear why the Senate majority worked so hard to keep the text of the bill a secret. The truth is now out: an estimated 22 million people would lose coverage under the BCRA compared to the ACA.

  But the people who would lose coverage are not the only ones who would be worse off. Many Americans who kept their insurance would still face higher costs under the BCRA. For the average marketplace enrollee in 2026, the BCRA would raise their total costs, including net premiums plus cost-sharing, by $2,294.

President Trump wants to restrict access to contraception under the guise of religious liberty

  Last month, the Trump administration took two significant actions to curtail women’s access to reproductive health care. On May 4, the president signed an executive order that expands the power of religious refusals in denying access to health care. The order limits the actions that the government can take against individuals and organizations who assert religious beliefs as a reason to deny their employees health care coverage—namely, contraceptive coverage. The order also gives Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime foe of progressive efforts to promote equality and pursue robust civil rights enforcement, broad authority to issue guidance interpreting religious liberty into federal law.

Cameron Smith: Five questions to ask Alabama’s federal candidates

  Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District, which encompasses the suburbs of Birmingham, may be the only hotly contested election this cycle, but that is no excuse for voters to give the remaining federal candidates a free pass on detailing their solutions to the challenges facing Alabama and the nation.

Brandon Demyan: Medicaid overdose: Bigger is not better

  Much has been made about the continual refusal by Governor Robert Bentley to expand Medicaid. In the push to pass the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), President Obama explained in 2009 that "we can’t simply put more people into a broken system that doesn’t work." Medicaid was originally created to provide healthcare to pregnant women, children, and the disabled. Instead of reforming the broken system, Obamacare simply expanded Medicaid to include all able-bodied adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line.

Robert Wilkerson: Don’t blow it, Bentley

  The best deal in history is being offered to Alabama to expand our Medicaid program. It is best for the needy, helping some 300,000 of Alabama’s lowest income people who have no healthcare coverage. It will prevent some from suffering and even death. It will help the unemployed by creating 30,000 jobs. It will help some Alabama hospitals that may be forced to close their doors due to too much uncompensated care. It will help Alabama’s economy generating over a $28 billion dollar increase in business activity from 2014 to 2020.

Eleni Towns: Faith-based providers and the Affordable Care Act

  Conservatives often present a false opposition between government and charity. They believe that charitable and faith-based organizations are better suited to provide health and other social services than the government. But the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, reveals a far different reality, one that proves Americans are best served when there are strong community-government partnerships that ensure all Americans have access to smart, effective and community-specific programs and services.

Cameron Smith: Better options for Medicaid?

  Many Alabamians may be unaware that Medicaid is the second largest budget item for Alabama’s state government at $5.23 billion in combined state and federal spending. For being such a significant expenditure, the average Alabamian might believe the state’s Medicaid beneficiaries receive some of the most generous health care around.

  Unfortunately, that is not the case with Alabama Medicaid. The state’s Medicaid program provides few services not mandated by the federal government and has some of the strictest eligibility requirements in the country.

Teresa Tolbert: First they came for women’s reproductive rights

  How do you decimate the rights of women in Alabama? You do it one bill at a time.

  Tuesday women all over this state were busy, as we are most days going about our everyday lives. Home, kids, work… for most of us it’s a continuous balancing act just to make it through the week. Who has time to worry about what some legislators in Montgomery are doing when we all lead such busy lives? But while we were all distracted Tuesday with the important tasks we do every day, our legislators were busy too — busy stripping away our rights one bill at a time.