Tag: health care

Commentary: Medicine’s Getting Major Injections of Woke Ideology

RealClearWire

The national racial reckoning over reparations and Critical Race Theory is taking over the world of medicine and health care. Prestigious medical journals, top medical schools and elite medical centers are adopting the language of social justice activism and vowing to confront “systemic racism,” dismantle “structural violence” and disrupt “white supremacy” in their institutional cultures.

Some activist physicians describe the present-day health care system with such ominous terms as a “medical caste system” or “medical apartheid,” the latter locution taken from the title of a 2007 book about America’s history of medical experimentation on enslaved blacks and freedmen.

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Commentary: A Tribute to Mothers with Inspiration from Maya Angelou

RealClearWire
Maya Angelou speaking

You wouldn’t think any possible controversy could append itself to that day, except that we are living in preternaturally contentious times. Two days ago, Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Democrat from St. Louis, was testifying about racial disparities in health care, focusing specifically on childbirth. While describing her own medical experiences, Bush used the unwieldy phrase “birthing people” instead of “mothers.” Apparently, this was an awkward attempt to use inclusive language.

Predictably, this rhetorical gambit earned her a fair amount of ridicule on social media. I’m sure Rep. Bush has many virtues, but neither self-awareness nor self-deprecating humor are at the top of that list. Just as predictably, Bush lashed out at those who mocked her wording for their “racism and transphobia.” She also accused her critics of trivializing an important subject, which was a more substantive rejoinder. Bush was discussing racial disparities in America’s medical system, which is no laughing matter, and invoking her own harrowing experiences in hospital delivery rooms to do it.

Yet breezily trying to replace the word “mothers” as a sign of wokeness a few days before Mother’s Day wasn’t likely to go down well. It was Cori Bush’s own peculiar choice of words that distracted listeners from her story.

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Surveys: 46 Million People Can’t Afford Health Care, Majority of Hospitals Not Providing Pricing Transparency

The Center Square
Assorted color syringes.

An estimated 46 million people — or 18% of the country — would be unable to pay for health care if they needed it today, a recent poll conducted by Gallup and West Health found.

In another survey by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the majority of hospitals in the U.S. have yet to comply with a transparency ruling implemented this year that would help patients shop around for the most affordable prices.

Gallup’s findings are based on a poll conducted between February 15 and 21 among 3,753 adults with a margin of error of 2%.

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Ohio Health Care Workers Free from COVID-19 Civil Liability

The Center Square

Health care centers and medical professionals are free from liability related to the COVID-19 pandemic under a new Ohio law signed by Gov. Mike DeWine.

Among other things, the new law temporarily grants qualified civil immunity to health care isolation centers to protect medical professionals from liability claims throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It also expands the authority of emergency medical technicians to provide medical services in hospitals, if needed.

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COVID Death Rates Are Falling as Treatment Improves, Experts Say

Ohio Star Staff

Death rates from the coronavirus are falling in the United States showing that treatments for the coronavirus are advancing, infectious-disease experts told the Wall Street Journal.

Data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (IHME) shows that the virus is only killing about 0.6% of those infected, the WSJ reported. This death rate has improved since April when the COVID death rate was at about 0.9%, the publication reported. 

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White House Wins Ruling on Health Care Price Disclosure

The Associated Press

The Trump administration won a court ruling Tuesday upholding its plan to require hospitals and insurers to disclose the actual prices for common tests and procedures in a bid to promote competition and push down costs.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called the decision in federal court in Washington, D.C., “a resounding victory” for President Donald Trump’s efforts to open up the convoluted world of health care pricing so patients and families can make better-informed decisions about their care.

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Health Care Group: It Would Cost $440 Million to Provide 3 Million Tests for All Nursing Home Residents and Workers

Ohio Star Staff

Testing every nursing home resident and care facility worker in the U.S. for COVID-19 would cost $440 million in federal and state funding, a health care group found. 

Doing so would require almost 3 million tests, according to the American Health Care Association’s National Center for Assisted Living, an industry group representing nursing homes and assisted living centers that calculated how much it would cost for states to receive adequate funding so all resident and care facility workers could be tested.

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Buckeye Institute Calls for Ending Regulations So Nurses Can Use Their Skills to Treat COVID-19 Patients

Jason M. Reynolds

The Buckeye Institute says Ohio should end the collaborative supervision requirements that prevent advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) from offering the medical care they have been trained and licensed to provide.

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Think Tank Calls for Ohio Government to Take Common-Sense Measures to Fight Coronavirus and Aid in Economic Recovery

Jason M. Reynolds

A new policy brief lays out actions that Ohio policymakers can immediately implement so Ohio can fight and yet recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and it doesn’t involve unilaterally moving primaries or shutting down businesses.

The Buckeye Institute released the brief on Monday.

The brief, Policy Solutions for the Pandemic: How Ohio Can Fight the Impact of Coronavirus, is available here.

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Coders Building Database Need Health Care Workers to Report Coronavirus Testing Sites So They Can Provide Data to Officials Battling Disease

Jason M. Reynolds

A coalition of computer coders and medical experts is looking for volunteers — including from the Volunteer State — to help provide better information on COVID-19 coronavirus testing sites.

TechCrunch reported on the one-week-old Coders Against Covid project, which is building a database of testing sites. The team of about 15 developers includes Andrew Kemendo of KesselRun, an Air Force software developer, and Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, a clinical instructor of Anesthesia at Stanford University. The goal is to inform officials tracking the disease and to better distribute the tests where they are needed.

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U.S. Officials Battle Coronavirus on Multiple Health Care, Economic Fronts Even as Death Toll Reaches 9

Jason M. Reynolds

The coronavirus death toll in the United States hit nine on Tuesday, even as more areas around the world report infections.

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Ohio Ranks Third in Nation in Ongoing Hepatitis A Outbreak

Jason M. Reynolds

As of Jan. 21, the Buckeye State had experienced 3,468 cases of hepatitis A in a statewide community outbreak that officially began Jan. 1, 2018, according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sixty-two percent of patients were hospitalized, and 16 died.

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Retired Ohio Public Workers Receive Massive Cuts to Health Care Benefits Starting in 2022

Jason M. Reynolds

Following a year in which stock markets posted healthy gains, the organization running Ohio’s public employee benefits is cutting back — a lot.

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Ohio Gov DeWine’s Office Dodges Question on Resettlement of Refugees Australia Refused to Accept

Jason M. Reynolds

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision on December 24 that would say yes to more refugees in Ohio would allow the federal government to resettle them from any country, including from an estimated 300 to 720 refugees from the Middle East that the government of Australia has refused to accept.

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Commentary: Kamikaze Schumer Wants to Repeal Private Health Insurance

Ohio Star Staff

While the Democrats continue their impeachment pantomime war dance in the mirror-clad corner in order to keep up their spirits, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is ginning up a much more fateful danse macabre on health care. He has promised to force a vote this week on various Trump Administration directives that have injected flexibility into Obamacare. As The Hill reports, “Senate Democrats plan to force vulnerable Republicans to vote on legislation that would overturn a controversial Trump administration directive on ObamaCare.”

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Commentary: Illegal Immigration Hurts Patients

Ohio Star Staff

The Democrats often claim that they alone will protect people with pre-existing conditions. Well, unfortunately for us, this popular catchphrase delivered the greatest catch in the history of politics: under Obamacare, insurance companies couldn’t deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions — but doctors could.

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California Governor Signs Illegal Immigrant Health Care Bill Into Law

Ohio Star Staff

by Jason Hopkins   California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom officially made his state the first in the U.S. to offer government health care benefits to adult-aged illegal immigrants. Newsom signed SB-104 into law Tuesday, cementing it into the state’s 2020 budget. The legislation extends taxpayer-funded health care to low-income adults…

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Trump Orders Hospitals to Disclose Prices Up Front

Ohio Star Staff

  U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday which he calls a “groundbreaking action” that will increase the “quality, affordability, and fairness” in the U.S. healthcare system. The order would require hospitals to disclose prices up front showing what patients can expect to pay for services in a…

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California Considers Spending Billions on Health Care for Illegal Immigrants

Ohio Star Staff

by Jason Hopkins   California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for government-funded health care for illegal immigrants is frugal compared to proposals by other Democratic leaders in his state. Newsom, the progressive first-term governor of California and ardent opponent of the Trump administration, wants to offer free health care services to…

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Klobuchar Joins Fox News for Town Hall Event in Wisconsin

Anthony Gockowski

  Sen. Amy Klobuchar joined Fox News Wednesday night for a town hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a state Hillary Clinton famously skipped during the 2016 election. According to Fox News, the network allows candidates to select the location for their town halls and Klobuchar picked Milwaukee, which will also host…

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Trump Reveals Timeline for Up-in-the-Air GOP Health Care Plan

Ohio Star Staff

by Evie Fordham   President Donald Trump put a timeline on his call for Republicans to develop a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Twitter Monday night. “Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums [and] deductibles are far too high — Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems…

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Trump Continues to Hammer Health Care Messaging, Ropes Four Senators Into His Fight

Ohio Star Staff

by Evie Fordham   President Donald Trump continued with criticism of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and touted four Republican senators he said will fix the ACA, colloquially known as Obamacare, in a tweet Monday. “The cost of ObamaCare is far too high for our great citizens. The deductibles, in…

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Commentary: When Bureaucracy Replaces Humanity

Ohio Star Staff

by Karl Notturno   I got a letter last week informing me that my catastrophic health care insurance was terminated. The plan was terminated because of a technical glitch. Instead of billing the credit card I had designated as my primary payment option, my healthcare provider billed an old and…

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In-Depth Analysis of Trump’s Policy Proposals in State of the Union Address

Ohio Star Staff

by Daniel Davis   President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night, and Heritage Foundation experts weighed in with analysis of the president’s policy proposals. Here’s what they had to say. Immigration Economy Law Defense & Foreign Policy Life Energy & Infrastructure Health Care Education Immigration…

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Commentary: The Legal Gymnastics Behind Obamacare

Ohio Star Staff
Obamacare

by Gary Galles   On December 14, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled Obamacare unconstitutional because its individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power,” since the tax that enforced it is now gone. Progressive leaning critics quickly…

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