What is good for geese is not for ganders, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided. The justices ruled 5-4 that the Biden Administration may force health employers to require their staff to get vaccinated or lose important federal funds, but in a 6-3 vote they rejected a vaccine-or-test mandate for companies with more than 100….
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Parents beware: Silicon Valley hypes inaccurate prenatal blood tests
Expectant parents have gotten an ugly exposure to a rapacious aspect of modern medicine: Over testing, over diagnosis, and over treatment, specifically with a new, fast-growing high-tech twist. The grownups — whether over-reaching to safeguard the unborn or in a simply silly way to determine the gender of their hoped-for bundle of joy — are….
Continue ReadingPoor FDA communication harms patients, taxpayers, other agencies
Critics are slamming the federal Food and Drug Administration for dropping the ball in informing the U.S. officials who run the Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ health programs about crucial regulatory decisions, leading the federal government apparently to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for patients to get a defective heart device and potentially to pay….
Continue ReadingIn latest pandemic surge, nursing home problems hit center stage, again
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are playing a sad, familiar, and disturbing role in the U.S. health system’s teetering on the verge of collapse in too many parts of the country due to the coronavirus pandemic. The owners and operators of the care facilities for the aged, sick, and injured insist they have….
Continue ReadingMotorists across region need to look in the mirror to improve road safety
When it comes to serious traffic and road safety problems in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, to quote the late, brilliant cartoonist Walt Kelly of Pogo fame: We have met the enemy and he is us. We are the reckless, speeding, and law-defying motorists not only from the District but, yes, big numbers of bad-behaving….
Continue ReadingD.C. area slammed hard as winter coronavirus surge blasts the U.S.
The coronavirus pandemic is tearing up the country with the Omicron variant shattering infection records and rates and this viral strain and the Delta variant overwhelming hospitals and threatening to break the already exhausted U.S. health care system. Uncertainty has returned to conversations about the pandemic’s course, as educators decide whether to return students at….
Continue ReadingGood news in ’22: Patients mostly see end to ‘surprise’ medical bills
Here’s a bit of good news that may make patients jump for joy to start off 2022: Surprise medical bills mostly are supposed to end, effective Jan. 1. Consumers still must watch out for potential big hits on their emergency transportation costs and they will need to ensure scheduled services with medical providers occur “in….
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