Healthcare In US

More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation's top public health agency received notices on Wednesday that they are being reinstated, according to a union representing the workers. The US Department of Health and Human Services confirmed reinstatement notices went out to the former Centres for Disease Control and Prevention employees, but provided few details. About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the time. Whole CDC programmes were essentially shut down, including some focused on smoking, lead poisoning, gun violence, asthma and air quality, and workplace safety and health. The entire office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests was shuttered. Infectious disease programmes took a hit, too, including programmes that fight outbreaks in other countries, labs focused on HIV and hepatitis in the US, and staff trying to eliminate tuberculosis. An estimated 200 of the reinstated work

During his decades working in organised medicine, Mukkamala has been a fierce advocate for patients

House Republicans unveiled the cost-staving centrepiece of President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" late Sunday, at least USD 880 billion in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of USD 4.5 trillion in tax breaks. Tallying hundreds of pages, the legislation is touching off the biggest political fight over health care since Republicans tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, during Trump's first term in 2017 -- which ended in failure. While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse" to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn millions of Americans will lose coverage. A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million over the decade. Savings like these allow us to use this bill to renew the Trump tax cuts and keep Republicans' promise to hardworking middle-class families, sa

A person was arrested near UnitedHealthcare's headquarters in Minnesota after reports of an intruder, months after the company's CEO was killed, authorities said Monday. Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka said the suspect was arrested outside of the United Healthcare corporate campus. The Minnetonka Police Department confirmed the arrest after initially tweeting just before 11.30 am that there was a large police presence at the health insurance company. News helicopter video showed over a dozen law enforcement vehicles from multiple agencies at the scene, as well as an ambulance that was standing by. There were no reports of injuries. The department later posted that a suspect was placed into custody without incident. There is no threat to the public, the department said. We are continuing to clear the scene at this time. Police did not immediately release further details on the incident. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot to death in New York City on Decemb

Texas has reported over 500 confirmed measles cases, with most patients unvaccinated. Health officials are pushing emergency vaccinations to curb the escalating outbreak

US President Donald Trump will nominate Dr Susan Monarez, the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the job, a White House official confirmed Monday. Trump abruptly withdrew the nomination of his first pick, David Weldon, earlier this month. Monarez has been serving as the CDC's acting director since January. She came from an outside federal government agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Earlier this month, the White House withdrew the nomination of Weldon, a former Florida Congressman, to lead the CDC. Weldon told the media his nomination was withdrawn because "there were not enough votes to get me confirmed". Weldon was closely aligned with Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary who for years has been one of the nation's leading anti-vaccine activists. The CDC is based in Atlanta and has a USD 9.2 billion core budget. It was created nearly 80 years ago to prevent the spread of malaria in the US. Its mission was lat

The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments

The U.S. winter virus season is in full force, and by one measure is the most intense in 15 years. One indicator of flu activity is the percentage of doctor's office visits driven by flu-like symptoms. Last week, that number was clearly higher than the peak of any winter flu season since 2009-2010, when a swine flu pandemic hit the nation, according to data posted Friday morning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of course, other viral infections can be mistaken for flu. But COVID-19 appears to be on the decline, according to hospital data and to CDC modeling projections. Available data also suggests another respiratory illness, RSV, has been fading nationally. The flu has forced schools to shut down in some states. The Godley Independent School District, a 3,200-student system near Fort Worth, Texas, last week closed for three days after 650 students and 60 staff were out Tuesday. Jeff Meador, a district spokesman, said the vast majority of illnesses there have bee

A group of families with transgender children filed a lawsuit Tuesday over President Donald Trump's executive order to halt federal support for gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19. PFLAG, a national group for family of LGBTQ+ people; and GLMA, a doctors organisation, are also plaintiffs in the court challenge in US District Court in Baltimore. It comes one week after Trump signed an order calling for the federal government to stop funding the medical care through federal government-run health insurance programs including Medicaid and TRICARE. Kristen Chapman, the mother of one of the plaintiffs in the case, said her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, from Tennessee in 2023 because of a ban on gender-affirming care in their home state. Her 17-year-old daughter, Willow, had an initial appointment scheduled for last week with a new provider who would accept Medicaid. But Trump signed his order the day before and the hospital said it could not provide care.

Police have arrested a 26-year-old man with a weapon consistent with the gun used to kill the head of the largest US health insurer, New York's police commissioner said Monday. The man was taken into custody after police got a tip that he had been spotted at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. They also recovered clothing, including a mask consistent with those worn by our wanted individual, Tisch said. Also recovered was a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching the ID our suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident." NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny identified the suspect as Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and a last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mangione had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making them difficult to trace, investigators said. As of right now the informa

Bird flu has infected 90 dairy herds across 12 states since late March, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Three dairy farm workers also have been infected with the virus

President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris on Tuesday promoted their healthcare agenda in the battleground state of North Carolina, arguing that Democrats like themselves would preserve access to care while Republicans would reverse gains made over the past decade and a half. Fourteen years after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the White House still sees health care as a winning issue during a campaign in which Biden has sometimes found himself on the defensive when it comes to immigration or the economy. Republicans have opposed Biden's signature initiatives to lower medical costs, and they've seized opportunities to restrict abortion rights after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. "It's sick. Now they want to quote, his words, terminate the ACA, as my predecessor says," Biden said, referring to Republican former President Donald Trump. "If that were ever to happen, we'd also terminate a lot of lives as well. But we're not going to

Picketing began Wednesday morning at Kaiser Permanente hospitals as some 75,000 health care workers go on strike in Virginia, California and three other states over wages and staffing shortages, marking the latest major labour unrest in the United States. Kaiser Permanente is one of the country's larger insurers and health care system operators, with 39 hospitals nationwide. The non-profit company, based in Oakland, California, provides health coverage for nearly 13 million people, sending customers to clinics and hospitals it runs or contracts with to provide care. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, representing about 85,000 of the health system's employees nationally, approved a strike for three days in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, and for one day in Virginia and Washington, DC. The strikers include licensed vocational nurses, home health aides and ultrasound sonographers, as well as technicians in radiology, X-ray, surgical, pharmacy and emergency ...

US Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths continue to rise, stressing the healthcare system and resulting in staffing shortages

One of the biggest drug decisions in decades is looming as US regulators consider whether to approve the first medicine that's claimed to slow mental decline from Alzheimer's disease

Or will they start building what they think is a mighty levee?