© 2024 Allbritton Journalism Institute

Health Care

NOTES
April 22, 2024 01:55 PM
The administration announced the HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy Monday, which prohibits disclosing a patient’s reproductive health care information, even if they travel across state lines for care. The rule is aimed at preventing medical records from being used “to conduct an investigation into or impose liability on any person for merely seeking, obtaining, providing or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, including abortion,” Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the Office for Civil Rights, said.
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March 26, 2024 09:41 AM
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday on a case that could restrict access to abortion pills nationwide. The justices are weighing whether to limit the availability of mifepristone, a drug used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions. This is the high court’s first case on abortion since overturning Roe v. Wade two years ago.
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March 14, 2024 03:19 PM
Vice President Kamala Harris toured an abortion provider on Thursday — something no president or vice president has done before. After her tour of a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, Harris criticized Republicans for passing laws to deny access to reproductive health care.
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March 04, 2024 05:06 PM
Gov. Katie Hobbs announced plans Monday to use up to $30 million in federal coronavirus relief funding to erase Arizonans’ medical debt. Those living at or under 400% of the federal poverty level or whose bills amount to 5% or more of their annual income would be eligible for the debt relief, per the Arizona Republic.
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February 28, 2024 05:18 PM
Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s attempt to get her bill protecting IVF passed via unanimous consent was blocked by Senate Republicans this afternoon. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith objected to the bill, saying it went beyond IVF.
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February 23, 2024 09:23 AM
Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the state Supreme Court was right to rule that embryos are “children” and people could be held liable for the accidental destruction of them. “That’s a situation that you never would really think about,” he told Semafor’s David Weigel. “But when you start hearing about that, you’ve got to say — wait a minute. That can’t be happening.” Asked about the implications for in vitro fertilization, Tuberville said: “I don’t know enough about how that works.” Two fertility clinics in Alabama have paused IVF treatments out of legal concerns.
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February 22, 2024 03:41 PM
Alabama Fertility Specialists has paused in vitro fertilization treatments “due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” the clinic posted on Facebook. This is the second clinic in the state, after the health system at University of Alabama at Birmingham, to put a hold on IVF in light of the state Supreme Court ruling that embryos are “children” and people can be held liable for destroying them.
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January 29, 2024 03:10 PM
The next big abortion case is coming to the Supreme Court this spring, with arguments over access to and FDA approval of mifepristone.
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January 24, 2024 05:17 PM
The Biden administration is touting record high enrollment in the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces with more than 21.3 million people signed up. It’s been almost eight years since Republicans tried and failed to repeal the program under Donald Trump. “The American people have made it clear. They don’t want the Affordable Care Act weakened,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in the briefing room Wednesday. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to call for its repeal.
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January 24, 2024 03:51 PM
Overriding GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto, state Republican lawmakers voted to enact a law that bans transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming surgeries, hormone therapies and restricts access to mental health care for transgender youth. It also bans transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams from kindergarten through the collegiate level. The law is expected to take effect in 90 days.
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