California’s Free Medi-Cal to Cover Illegal Immigrants amid Healthcare Shortage

Doctor and Patient

Beginning January 1, illegal immigrants will be able to qualify for and use Medi-Cal, California’s taxpayer-funded free and low-cost healthcare plan for low-income residents. Experts warn that the state is already facing a healthcare shortage as a new $25 healthcare minimum wage threatens to reduce staffing levels — and doctors who accept Medi-Cal’s low reimbursement rate — even further. 

By expanding Medi-Cal eligibility to illegal immigrants between the ages of 26 and 49 under SB 184, an omnibus spending bill, California will add an estimated 700,000 users to the Medi-Cal system at a cost of $2.7 billion per year. 

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Despite Backlog of Claims, Department of Veterans Affairs Using Resources to Help Illegal Immigrants

At a press conference on immigration reform earlier this month, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., criticized President Biden for putting the needs of illegal immigrants over those of America’s veterans. “Veterans have a hard enough time getting the care that they need and now they have to compete with illegal immigrants? This will not fix the border crisis. Biden’s border crisis puts illegal immigrants first, it puts our veterans last,” Daines said.

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Vote Record Analysis: Ohio Republicans, Governor DeWine Vote ‘Very Liberal’ on Tax, Fiscal, and Healthcare Policies

A new vote record analysis of the Ohio legislature by the Institute for Legislative Analysis (ILA) found that lawmakers from the Buckeye State have the most “conservative voting records when it comes to cutting regulations, but very liberal records on tax, fiscal and healthcare policy.”

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Commentary: Marketplace Forces Can Improve Healthcare in Ohio

Ohio’s healthcare landscape is coming into some very bumpy challenges in the days ahead. The complications of the affordability crisis in our state are well known. Any family in Ohio that had to buy a prescription drug recently or that has private health insurance can tell you that maintaining affordable healthcare is getting harder and harder.

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Commentary: Republicans Must Not Surrender to Bernie Sanders on Healthcare

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the GOP needs an effective healthcare agenda. There are many policies and programs they could be championing to help families deal with rising costs — especially now with control in the House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate — but unfortunately, they’ve failed to capitalize on this issue so far.

Republicans are missing an important opening; last year 90 percent of voters said a candidate’s plan for reducing the cost of healthcare would be important to them and 39 percent went so far as to say they would likely cross party lines to vote for a candidate who makes reducing healthcare costs their top priority!

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Mass General Brigham Speech Code Includes Blacklist on Care

A wealthy Massachusetts healthcare system that went on a controversial advertising spree to justify its encroachment on cheaper hospitals is now sending patients a different message: Watch your language.

“Words or actions that are disrespectful, racist, discriminatory, hostile, or harassing are not welcome” at Mass General Brigham (MGB), according to a “Patient Code of Conduct” imposed this fall after a year of development.

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Ohio Congresswoman Brown Pushing Bill to Expand Government Role in Healthcare

U.S. Representative Shontel Brown (D-OH-11) is leading a charge among members of Congress in favor of a measure to expand the federal government’s role in healthcare, particularly regarding mental-health-related comorbidities. 

The Cleveland-area Democrat is cosponsoring her Mental and Physical Health Care Comorbidities Act with House colleague Brendan Boyle (D-PA-2). Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) has introduced a version of the legislation in his chamber. 

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Democrats Worry About Spike in Obamacare Premiums Ahead of Midterms

Obamacare

As Democrats head into the November midterms with historically low approval ratings, another major factor could arise that will further contribute to the shrinking of their already-slim majorities.

As reported by The Hill, the Affordable Care Act – known colloquially as “Obamacare” – could face a significant increase in premiums due to a lapse in special funding provided by the coronavirus aid bill passed last year. That bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, temporarily increased financial assistance for Americans seeking healthcare through Obamacare; the increase was set to expire just one year after the bill’s passage.

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Commentary: Joe Biden and His Hostility to Conscience Rights

In 2020, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for forcing a nurse to assist at an abortion. Trump’s Department of Justice called the hospital’s bullying of the nurse “the kind of indecent coercion [that] violates everything this country stands for.”

In 2021, the Biden administration dropped this lawsuit. It did not want to defend the nurse. This rankled former Trump officials. “It is a dereliction of duty that is an insult to the bipartisan consensus that says you cannot force people to assist in abortions,” Roger Severino, the former head of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) told Fox News.

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Commentary: Schools’ COVID-Aid Joy Ride Could Send New Hires off a Fiscal Cliff – Again

As school districts across the country grapple with declining enrollments induced by the pandemic, many are engaged in spending sprees like those of the past leading to widespread layoffs and budget cuts when federal money ran out.

Bolstered by $190 billion in pandemic relief funding from Washington, the nation’s public schools are hiring new teachers and staff, raising salaries, and sweetening benefit packages. Some are buying new vehicles. Others are building theaters and sports facilities.

Using such temporary support for new staff and projects with long-term costs is setting the table for perilous “fiscal cliffs” after COVID funding expires in 2024, some education budget analysts say. And that’s on top of doubts about whether money to battle the pandemic is being properly spent in the first place.

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U.S. Senate Votes to Strike Down Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers and COVID National Emergency

nurse with hairnet and mask on

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted to strike down Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate targeting healthcare workers at federally funded facilities. The measure passed on a party-line vote of 49 to 44.

No Democrat senators voted with Republicans to repeal the mandate, but GOP senators were able to get the resolution through the Senate because six Democrats missed the vote, The Hill reported.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who physician, and former military officer.  Before voting began, Marshall argued that the CMS vaccine mandate is “not about public health or science.”

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Postal Service Legislative ‘Fix’ Will Dump Workers on Medicare

A bill to “fix” the troubled United States Post Office (USPS) is on the verge of passage in the Senate but does it solve more problems than it creates? The Postal Service Reform Act of 2021, H.R. 3076 was scheduled for a vote earlier this month but was blocked by Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) on a procedural technicality.  “We can’t afford to add stress on our already enormous national debt with poor financial planning, which I think this bill absolutely does,” Scott said of the bill.

Now it’s back and on track for a vote in the Senate.

The biggest financial liability facing the USPS is the legal requirement to fund 75 years of retirement health benefits in advance for its workers. Congress has found a way around that by dumping the future postal workers on to Medicare.

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Doctors Sue California for Threatening to Punish Them for not Facilitating Assisted Suicide

California doctors who object to assisted suicide are fighting an amended state law that implicates them in their patients’ intentional deaths.

They are suing California officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, Department of Public Health Director Tomas Aragon, and Medical Board members to block SB 380, which made it easier for patients to commit suicide under the End of Life Options Act that took effect in 2016.

The original law issued a broad exemption for healthcare providers, granting them a liability shield for “refusing to inform” patients about their right to physician-assisted suicide and “not referring” patients to physicians who will assist in their suicides.

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Hospitals Are Getting Away with Ignoring Price Transparency Rules, Experts Say

Many hospitals are not complying with laws requiring them to make their healthcare prices publicly available, according to multiple reports, and the Biden administration has so far refrained from issuing penalties.

The Hospital Price Transparency rule, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2021, is designed to promote competition in healthcare markets by requiring hospitals to post their prices, so that consumers can compare and shop between hospitals. The law mandates hospitals to post their pricing data “as a comprehensive machine-readable file with all items and services” as well as “in a display of shoppable services in a consumer-friendly format.”

However, according to recent reports, many hospitals have yet to comply with the rules a year after they have been in effect. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal last week found that many of the nation’s largest hospital chains were not complying with the new rules.

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by Maine Healthcare Workers Challenging Vaccine Mandate

Healthcare workers

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Maine healthcare workers attempting to block the state’s vaccine mandate.

The group of unvaccinated workers argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights because the law doesn’t have a religious exemption.

According to the Associated Press, Maine is one of three states including New York and Rhode Island that have vaccine mandates that lack religious exemptions for healthcare workers.

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Roughly 40 Percent of Americans Say They Recently Suffered Financial Difficulties, Study Shows

Soldiers assigned the Ohio National Guard’s HHC 1-148th Infantry Regiment – 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and the Ohio Military Reserve, give the thumbs-up for troopers assigned to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, to send more vehicles through the line at a drive through food distribution event at the Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank, May 9, 2020. The food bank teamed up with the Ohio National Guard and the Highway Patrol to conduct the first-ever drive through event at the food bank. More than 700 Ohio National Guard and Ohio Military Reserve members were activated to provide humanitarian missions in support of Operation Steady Resolve COVID-19 relief efforts, continuing The Ohio National Guard’s long history of supporting humanitarian efforts throughout Ohio and the nation. To date, the Ohio National Guard has assisted in the distribution of more than 9.9 million pounds of food and pantry items to Ohioans in need. (Air National Guard photo by Senior Master Sgt. Beth Holliker)

Over 40% of U.S. households said they experienced severe financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing difficulties paying bills, credit cards and draining their savings, according to a Harvard University report.

The survey conducted by the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the National Public Radio asked roughly 3,600 participants between July and August about problems they faced during the pandemic and how it affected their lives in recent months. Respondents were asked about financial, healthcare, education and personal safety concerns.

Roughly 30% of adults interviewed said they used up all or most of their savings during the pandemic, while 10% reported they had no savings before the pandemic began, according to the report.  About one in five households had difficulties paying credit cards, loans, and other debts as well as utilities.

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Commentary: BidenCare Blows ObamaCare Costs Out of the Water

PolitiFact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year” came from former President Barack Obama selling ObamaCare, his massive government takeover of healthcare. “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it,” Obama said. That was a lie. Now President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) want to expand that lie through their $3.5 trillion federal spending blowout pending in Congress. 

Obama also said we could keep our doctors under ObamaCare. Obama lied to me and millions of other people. When I left a full-time job in 2013 for contract work, I switched to an ObamaCare exchange plan. And no, I didn’t get to keep my doctor on that new plan. I also saw the cost of my ObamaCare plan increase by double digit rates for 2014.

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Ohio Health Care Group Fears Vaccine Mandate Could Be Devastating

President Joe Biden’s plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for nursing home employees could damage further an industry struggling in Ohio, the executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association said.

Pete Van Runkle said the group is pro-vaccine but a federal mandate negatively could affect services to some of the most needy people in the state and be damaging to skilled nursing facilities.

“We believe the Biden Administration’s plan, at least articulated in the press conference, would be devastating to Ohio SNFs and to their staff and residents,” Van Runkle said. “While we support vaccination and recognize that it is the most effective defense against COVID-19, the proposed mandate does not account for staffing that is already stretched beyond the breaking point.”

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Commentary: Instead of Tightening Government’s Grip on Healthcare, Give Americans a Personal Option

Healthcare workers

As America begins to put the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview, the lesson from this once-in-a-generation crisis couldn’t be clearer: We need less, not more, central planning in our lives.

For example, a study earlier this year by health economist Casey Mulligan revealed that economic lockdowns mandated by government were counterproductive, given the significant steps workplaces took to prevent the virus from spreading.

The same is true with health care. By now, most folks know the story of how Operation Warp Speed — the previous administration’s unprecedented plan to trim bureaucracy from the vaccine development process — resulted in the creation of multiple safe and effective vaccines in record time. But an equally important storyline is how states took a sledgehammer to their own bureaucracies to expand access to care for those in need.

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‘I Still Felt Incomplete’: Detransitioned Men, Women Describe How Frighteningly Easy it Was to Get Trans Surgeries, Hormones

Doctors room with surgeons

Multiple men and women who have detransitioned described how easy it was for them to get transgender surgeries and hormones in a new CBS segment — and how the surgeries or treatment negatively impacted them.

As lawmakers across the country introduce and pass bills focused on gender transitions, Lesley Stahl interviewed multiple medical experts and former or current transgender people who expressed fear that transgender surgeries and hormone treatments, often irreversible, are too easily attainable.

The CBS host said that the program “interviewed more than 30 detransitioners, who say they also had experienced regret, including these four, who hadn’t met before now.”

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Tennessee Becomes Second State to Ban Trans Hormone Treatments Before Puberty

child running with trans flag

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation Tuesday that bans hormone treatment for prepubescent minors.

SB0126 goes into effect immediately, making Tennessee the second state to ban trans procedures for minors, NBC reported. The Arkansas state legislature overrode Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of a bill banning transgender surgeries and procedures for minors in April.

Arkansas’ “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act,” otherwise known as the SAFE Act, prohibits physicians from performing gender transition procedures, such as puberty blockers or “top” and “bottom” surgeries, on minors before puberty. Transgender surgeries include vaginoplasty, phalloplasty, breast implants, and facial surgeries.

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Biden Administration Facing Media Scrutiny for Not Allowing Press Access to Child Migrant Detention Facilities

Reporters in the White House Press Briefing Room expressed frustration on Wednesday with the Biden Administration for failing to provide proper information or press access regarding the increasingly overflowing migrant detention facilities on the southern border, as reported by Breitbart.

One reporter grilled White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on this issue, asking “It’s now been three weeks since….you were first asked about getting us some press access” to these facilities, which have been filling up with child migrants in particular. “Why have we still not seen any images inside these facilities?”

Psaki dodged the question, and instead tried to claim that Biden himself is receiving such information in briefings, saying that “he talks to plenty of officials.” Psaki also continued blaming other factors for the lack of information, including various restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the privacy of children who occupy these facilities.

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Teachers Union Boss who Fought to Keep Schools Closed Caught Dropping Kid off at in-Person Preschool

Remember the Chicago teachers union bigwig who defended school closures while wearing a bathing suit in Baja? We’ve got another one.

In Northern California, the same guy who has been claiming schools are too unsafe to reopen apparently doesn’t practice what he preaches.

A video posted by a Twitter account called “guerillaMomz” shows the president of the Berkeley teachers union dropping his daughter off at in-person preschool.

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Commentary: Vice President Biden, Don’t Take Away Our Healthcare Choice

President Donald Trump recently painted a picture for the American people of what healthcare reform would look if given a second term in office. 

Trump made a passionate argument for a framework anchored in choice and transparency, elements that stand in stark contrast to Obamacare—which used the power of the federal government to force people to purchase something simply for being alive: government-sanctioned health insurance.   

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Healthcare Activist Says Patients Aren’t Being Allowed Crucial Visitors

A nurse turned medical activist is accusing an Ohio Healthcare Provider of refusing to help her husband after she complained about the Hospital’s visitor policies.

Michelle Estel, says that she received a letter from Fairfield Medical Center (FMC), where her husband was receiving chemotherapy for his lymphoma stating that the hospital could no longer provide care to him since the relationship between he and the hospital was “no longer effective.” 

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Commentary: Billionaire Know-It-Alls Side with Insurance Companies on Surprise Medical Billing

You may have never heard of them, but there is a new, young billionaire couple determined to leave their mark on society. John and Laura Arnold are not interested in the type of philanthropy that builds libraries and college buildings or feeds, clothes, shelters, and educates the poor. No, like George Soros, the Arnolds are on a mission to “change the country,” whether we like it or not. When these arrogant elitists are not busy trying to erode our gun rights, promoting abortion, funding spying on citizens, or trying to upend our electoral system, they are busy trying to cut medical professionals pay. Specifically, the liberal power couple wants to address the issue of surprise medical billing by reducing the amount of money that medical professionals are paid for providing out-of-network care to patients.

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New Senate Bills Provide Greater Restrictions on Physicians Providing Abortions

Two anti-abortion bills in the Ohio Senate have cleared the Health Committee, making way for closer restrictions on abortion pill reverse treatment and rights of abortion survivors. Both could get a vote by the full Senate as early as Wednesday.

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Obama-Appointed Judge Blocks Trump’s Health Care Rule For Immigrants

A federal judge has, at least temporarily, blocked the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would require immigrants prove that they have health insurance or can afford to pay for it.

Judge Michael Simon of the federal district court in Portland, Oregon, issued a nationwide temporary restraining order Saturday, barring President Donald Trump from implementing his health care requirement for foreign nationals applying for legal permanent status.

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Poll: 59% of Americans Oppose Government-Provided Health Insurance for Illegal Migrants

by Chuck Ross   Nearly 60% of Americans oppose making government-provided health insurance available to illegal immigrants, according to a CNN poll released Monday. “Do you think health insurance coverage provided by the government should or should not be available to undocumented immigrants living in the United States?” reads a…

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The Battleground State Report: Democrats Say, ‘Come On In! We’ll Pay for Your Healthcare!’

  The Battleground State Report, airing Fridays at 8 am CST with Steve Gill, Michael Patrick Leahy, and Doug Kellett is a one-hour radio show from Star News Digital Media in the early stages of a national weekend syndication roll out. The three men dissected the Democratic debates from the past Wednesday and Thursday night noting…

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California Set to Give Full Health Care Benefits to Low Income Illegal Immigrants

by Molly Prince   California lawmakers released a final draft of the state’s 2020 budget late Sunday evening that would expand health care to illegal immigrants and cost taxpayers nearly $100 million per year. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom reached an agreement with Democrats in the state legislature to become the first…

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Arizona’s Rep. Andy Biggs Drops Bill to End Tax Deduction for Abortions

by Rachel del Guidice   An Arizona congressman plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would end a tax deduction for abortions. “For years, the pro-abortion movement has marketed abortion as a form of reproductive health care,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “But…

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