Latest California Healthline Stories
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Welcome Back, Congress. Now Get to Work.
Congress returns from its summer recess with a long list of tasks and only a few work days to get them done. On top of the annual spending bills needed to keep the government operating, on the list are bills to renew the global HIV/AIDS program, PEPFAR, and the community health centers program. Meanwhile, over the recess, the Biden administration released the names of the first 10 drugs selected for the Medicare price negotiation program.
Need to Get Plan B or an HIV Test Online? Facebook May Know About It
Twelve of the largest drugstores in the U.S. sent shoppers’ sensitive health information to Facebook or other platforms, according to an investigation by The Markup and KFF Health News.
US Officials Want to End the HIV Epidemic by 2030. Many Stakeholders Think They Won’t.
The federal government’s ambitious plan to end the HIV epidemic, launched in 2019, has generated new ways to reach at-risk populations in targeted communities across the South. But health officials, advocates, and people living with HIV worry significant headwinds will keep the program from reaching its goals.
¿Se podrá cumplir con la meta de terminar con la epidemia de VIH para 2030?
Debido a las interrupciones de la pandemia, los funcionarios federales no han tenido estimaciones sólidas de nuevas infecciones o el número de personas que viven con VIH desde finales de 2019.
Judge’s Decision Would Make Some No-Cost Cancer Screenings a Thing of the Past
A U.S. District Court ruling overturned the section of the Affordable Care Act that makes preventive health services — from colonoscopies to diabetes screenings and more — available at no cost to consumers.
La decisión podría afectar los exámenes de detección sin copago y servicios preventivos similares que la mayoría de los estadounidenses con seguro tienen como parte de sus planes de salud.
HIV Outbreak Persists as Officials Push Back Against Containment Efforts
Research shows offering clean syringes to people who misuse IV drugs is effective in combating the spread of HIV. But an epidemiologist and advocates say state and local officials in West Virginia, home to one of the worst HIV outbreaks in recent years, have taken measures that render syringe exchange less accessible.
Court Ruling May Spur Competitive Health Plans to Bring Back Copays for Preventive Services
The Affordable Care Act required that health insurers provide many medical screenings and prevention services at no out-of-pocket cost to health plan members. But insurers and employers may consider adding cost sharing for preventive services now that a federal court ruled the ACA’s mandate is unconstitutional.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Judge Takes Aim at the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Care Benefits
A federal judge in Texas — the same one who tried to strike down the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional in 2018 — has ruled against some of the ACA’s preventive benefits, including the requirement that employers cover medication to prevent HIV. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tries to make abortions slightly more available to veterans and their dependents. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Lauren Sausser, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment.
A Needle Exchange Project Modeled on Urban Efforts Aims to Save Lives in Rural Nevada
Five years after HIV tore through a rural Indiana town as a result of widespread drug use, a syringe and needle exchange program was set up in rural Nevada to prevent a similar event.