More Americans ages 18 to 59 may be infected with the human papilloma virus (HPV) than previously had been known, with 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women carrying high-risk strains, federal experts say. The new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may become a key part of campaigns to….
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Here’s how hospital billing is a sick system for patients, payers, and providers
Hospital care accounts for a third of the nation’s $3 trillion in annual spending for medical services. And not only are these charges increasing—and driving up health costs—they’re infuriating patients and their families. Who can make heads or tails of hospital bills? And if consumers do, will they discover billing practices that only anger them….
Continue ReadingFDA reverses course, allows controversial over-the-counter genetic test sales
Federal regulators have reversed themselves and approved a company’s controversial plan to sell direct to customers saliva-based tests that can predict their genetic risk for diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Officials of the federal Food and Drug Administration emphasized that the tests cannot show conclusively if individuals will develop conditions for which they may have….
Continue ReadingGOP made Obamacare popular, and polls show party’s responsible for it now
Republicans in Congress are heading home to their districts for a spring break. Will they hear again from angry constituents—but this time from zealous supporters angry that they failed to fulfill their seven-year promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare? Maybe, maybe not. It seems the House GOP, especially, has remedied….
Continue ReadingTrump insider-nominee to head FDA starts out with list of conflicts of interest
At a time when drug costs are skyrocketing and Americans are demanding relief, President Trump’s nominee to be the chief regulator of Big Pharma and medical device makers says he initially must sidestep a lot of oversight of the industry because his deep ties to it might cause conflicts of interest. Scott Gottlieb made his….
Continue ReadingTroubles at Howard University Hospital should concern us all
It may be easy to forget. But hospitals not that long ago refused to care for black Americans. If they did so, they kept them separate and far from white patients, shunning African Americans in separate wards in “freezing attics or damp basements.” Blood transfusions were taboo. The medicine was dismal and unequal, with black….
Continue ReadingGOP turns from failed blitzkrieg to trench fighting in war against Obamacare
Now that the blitzkrieg assault on Obamacare is over, the battle to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act hasn’t gone totally up in smoke. It just has fallen, for now, into lots of still critical bits and pieces. Keep your eye on: Medicaid The public now knows how vital, widespread, and entrenched this federal health….
Continue ReadingEvidence grows on lack of merit in GOP attack on harmed patients’ legal rights
Doctors should hold the prime role in the nation’s medical policy making, Tom Price, the orthopedist who is the Trump Administration’s top health expert, has insisted. But will the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary heed top experts in his field, writing in some of medicine’s leading journals, that he and GOP partisans lack real….
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