“Diagnostic and treatment guidelines aren’t sexy, but they play a vital role in the practice of medicine. Physician societies, government agencies, and others issue detailed recommendations for everything from who should receive cardiac stents to which antibiotics patients should get to avoid infections after knee surgery… After roughly a decade of budget cuts, however, the government’s Agency for Health Care Research has defunded the repository, effective July 16, 2018.” More …
Healthcare
White House, EPA headed off chemical pollution study
“Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a “public relations nightmare,” newly disclosed emails reveal.” More …
Trump’s Lawyer Pitched Himself as a Fixer to Novartis and Got Paid $1.2 million
“The curious relationship between one of the world’s biggest drug makers and President Trump’s personal lawyer began early last year when Michael Cohen, a longtime fixer for the president, reached out to Novartis’s then-chief executive officer Joe Jimenez, promising help gaining access to Trump and influential officials in the new administration, according to an employee inside Novartis familiar with the matter.” More …
Trump’s Obamacare Sabotage to Leave Millions More Uninsured
“The Trump administration has spent much of its tenure trying to sabotage the American health-care system. … Trump has effectively replaced Obamacare with a federal health-care program that’s nearly identical — except that it covers fewer people, charges higher premiums, and costs the government more money.” More …
Senate’s Tax Bill Is a Sweeping Change to Every Part of Federal Health Care
It slashes Medicare by billions and will leave millions without insurance. More …
Marco Rubio: Time to Reduce Medicare and Social Security Benefits
Marco Rubio: “If lawmakers can act strategically sooner rather than later to come up with some combination of reforms to reduce benefits and raise retirement age, the pain of change and reduced benefits will be greatly mitigated.” More …
5 Ways the Tax Bills Affect Health Policy
“Having failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Congress is now working on a tax overhaul. But it turns out the tax bills in the House and Senate also aim to reshape health care.” More …
Investigation: VA Knowingly Hires Doctors with Past Malpractice Claims, Discipline for Poor Care
“The VA has repeatedly hired doctors with problem pasts in recent years, some of whom went on to harm veteran patients, a USA TODAY investigation found.” More …
Orrin Hatch Explains Why Tax Cuts Are More Important Than Children’s Health Insurance
Orrin Hatch: “The reason CHIP’s (Children’s Health Insurance Program) having trouble is we don’t have any money anymore… I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger, and expect the federal government to do everything.” More …
Paul Ryan Trying to Talk Trump Into Cutting Medicare
Paul Ryan: “We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit… Frankly, it’s the health-care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.” More …