Category: HEALTH POLICY
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Look beyond premium costs when choosing a Medicare plan; Medicare Advantage may not be an advantage for you
By Trudy Lieberman, Rural Health News Service Making decisions about Medicare coverage has never been easy. Over the years the task has become more complicated as Congress has moved to...
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Need for improved staffing in nursing homes and hospitals was among timely topics at annual Health Watch USA conference
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Several speakers at the Oct. 4 Health Watch USA Healthcare Transparency and Patient Safety Conference in Lexington talked about the importance of adequate staffing in nursing...
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Legislators say nursing-home staffing issues need a hearing soon, but co-chair of health panel suggests there’s no time before 2019
State legislators want a hearing on nursing home staffing in Kentucky, following a series of stories in the Lexington Herald-Leader that showed how some residents have died as a result of neglect. “A Republican leader...
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Smoke-Free Coalition will lobby for state law to ban tobacco products and e-cigs from all school property and activities
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Concerned that historic declines in youth tobacco use will be undermined by the “exploding popularity” of Juul and other e-cigarettes, Kentucky’s Coalition for a Smoke-Free...
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Congress sends President Trump a huge, comprehensive, bipartisian bill to fight the opioid epidemic; he says he will sign it
By a 98-1 vote Wednesday, the Senate passed the final version of a comprehensive package to address the opioid epidemic and sent it to President Donald Trump, who is expected...
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Cheap knockoffs of popular Juul electronic cigarettes are latest FDA target to protect teens from vaping
Cheap knock-offs of the Juul electronic cigarettes popular with teens have been showing up in stores and online, “despite a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule banning the sale of new e-cigarette...
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Panel at health policy forum cites alternatives to opioids for pain, and the need for a culture shift on the topic
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Kentucky has a new law restricting painkiller prescriptions to three days for acute pain, but an anecdotal story from one of the state’s leading...
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Share of uninsured Kentuckians in rural areas and small towns dropped to 13 percent from 40 percent after Medicaid expansion
OPINION By Emily Beauregard Executive director, Kentucky Voices for Health Medicaid expansion has made an overwhelmingly positive impact on rural Kentucky. Our state was among the top three leaders in...
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U.S. Medicaid boss defends work rules and other ‘community engagement’ requirements, says they will thwart dependency
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News The director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave a spirited defense of work rules and other “community engagement” requirements in state Medicaid programs,...
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Federal judge strikes down state law Bevin cited, requiring abortion clinics to have agreements for ambulance service
Kentucky abortion clinics do not need to have written agreements with an ambulance service and hospital for patient care in the event of an emergency, because such restrictions are unconstitutional,...