Emergency Contraception Marks a New Battle Line in Texas
In the shadow of Texasâ austere abortion regulations, grassroots organizers employ stealth tactics to help young women get emergency contraception.
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In the shadow of Texasâ austere abortion regulations, grassroots organizers employ stealth tactics to help young women get emergency contraception.
Just as Texas has tightened its laws surrounding abortion, Mexico has gone the opposite direction, compelling people to seek potentially less-safe procedures south of the border.
Congress is in recess, so the slower-than-average news week gives us a chance to catch up on underreported topics, like Medicareâs coverage decision for the controversial Alzheimerâs disease drug Aduhelm and ominous new statistics on drug overdose deaths and sexually transmitted diseases. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of Politico and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Some U.S. states have reduced use of the procedure, including by sharing C-section data with doctors and hospitals. But change has proved difficult in the South, where women are generally less healthy heading into their pregnancies and maternal and infant health problems are among the highest in the U.S.
President Joe Biden welcomed former President Barack Obama back to the White House this week to announce a new policy for the Affordable Care Act that would make subsidies available to more families with unaffordable employer coverage. Meanwhile, Congress struggled to find a compromise for continued federal funding of covid-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
Some doctors are getting licensed in multiple states so they can use telemedicine and mail-order pharmacies to provide medication abortions to more women. At the same time, states are cracking down on telemedicine abortions, blunting the efforts of out-of-state doctors.
The Supreme Courtâs conservative majority has yet to make clear its stand on Roe v. Wade. But state lawmakers arenât waiting to consider a variety of extreme measures: bills that would ban abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancies, allow rapistsâ families to object to terminating a victimâs pregnancy, or prohibit the procedure in the case of fetal disability. Do these proposals make the less extreme restrictions seem more mainstream?
The Supreme Court is expected to overturn or weaken âRoe v. Wade.â If that happens, Colorado may become an abortion-access island, nearly surrounded by a sea of anti-abortion states. The state is bracing for impact, and advocates are trying to shore up its abortion defenses.
Although its fate was in doubt more than a few times, the Affordable Care Act turned 12 this week. Year 13 could be pivotal in determining how many Americans receive ACA health insurance, and at what price. Meanwhile, three leading credit bureaus agreed to stop using most medical debt to measure U.S. consumersâ creditworthiness. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and KHNâs Mary Agnes Carey join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
The number of medical schools and residency programs where aspiring physicians can learn to perform abortion procedures continues to shrink, a byproduct of the anti-abortion legislation being enacted in multiple states.
The White House makes a move as a new wave of covid threatens. President Joe Biden brings in Dr. Ashish Jha to take over the executive branch effort. Meanwhile, it remains unclear if and when Congress can come up with the funds to continue much of the federal anti-covid effort. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was reauthorized on March 10, 2022, reaffirming tribesâ authority to prosecute non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence and certain other crimes. This episode looks at the history of VAWA, and how protections for Native women have been tangled in the fine print of the law.
California was supposed to start paying doulas this year to help Medicaid enrollees have healthy pregnancies. But the benefit has been delayed because doulas feel lowballed by the stateâs proposed reimbursement rate, which is below what most other states pay.
The Biden administrationâs request for billions more in funding to fight covid-19 hit a snag on Capitol Hill this week, as Democrats objected to Republican demands that money allocated to states but not yet spent be reclaimed. Meanwhile, the big annual spending bill about to cross the finish line addresses other health policy changes, such as giving the FDA authority to regulate âsyntheticâ nicotine. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Jessie Hellmann of Modern Healthcare join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
President Joe Biden spent a large portion of his first State of the Union address talking about foreign affairs, but he also spent time on an array of health topics, including mental health, nursing home regulation, and toxic burn pits. Also this week, the administration unveiled a strategy to address the covid pandemic going forward. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Amy Goldstein of The Washington Post, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Clinical trials of covid-19 vaccines excluded pregnant people, which left many women wondering whether to get vaccinated.
Covid is running rampant through the Alderson womenâs prison in West Virginia, in one of the deadliest outbreaks this year at a federal correctional facility. This comes as Bureau of Prisons officials take heat for how the agency has handled the pandemic.
Conservative lawmakers may find their anti-abortion agendas complicated by state constitutions that explicitly grant citizens the right to privacy, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is drawing criticism for his hands-off handling of the covid crisis even though the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and FDA report to him. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor looks to enforce mental health âparity lawsâ that have failed to achieve their goals. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHNâs Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHNâs Noam N. Levey, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR âBill of the Monthâ episode about a large emergency room bill for a small amount of medical care.
About a quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. Despite the large number of workers affected, no national laws protect them when they need time off to deal with the loss.
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