health-care-issues
A new COVID-19 booster is here. Will those at greatest risk get it?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends new COVID-19 booster vaccines for all — but many who need them most won’t get them. About 75% of people in the United States appear to have skipped last year’s bivalent booster, and nothing suggests uptake will be better this time around. “Urging people to get boosters […]
Fertility health coverage is still hard to come by in many states
As fertility rates drop and more women postpone childbirth into their 30s and 40s, more states are considering mandating that private insurers cover fertility treatments to help people start a family without the crushing out-of-pocket expenses. Such laws would help people such as Miraya and Andy Gran of Bloomington, Minnesota, who ended up spending $102,000 to have their […]
Pa. nurses celebrate passage of Patient Safety Act in state House
The Patient Safety Act, which would limit nurse-to-patient ratios, heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has stalled before.
Pa. lawmakers say communities need more notice to prepare for hospital closings
[This article was updated at 2:33 p.m., Thursday, May 4, 2023, to correct an error in County Council Chairperson Monica Taylor’s name] When Crozer Health slashed services at two of its hospitals last year, it left Delaware County residents with longer drives and longer waits for emergency care and made crucial maternal care harder to […]
Pennsylvania House passes eight bipartisan bills in productive return to session
Pennsylvania House lawmakers passed eight bipartisan bills, including four with unanimous approval, in the lower chamber’s return to session this week after a nearly two-month hiatus. With a narrow one-vote majority for the first time in more than a decade, House committees also cued up a blizzard of bills on Democratic policy priorities, such as […]
Bill to end medical co-pays for incarcerated Pennsylvanians to be reintroduced
Brown sponsored the same bill in the 2021-22 legislative session. It died in the House Judiciary Committee without coming to a vote.
Western Pa. abortion providers say they are seeing an increase in out-of-state patients post-Dobbs
The meeting, which was the third in a series of hearings on reproductive health care in post-Roe Pennsylvania, focused heavily on the impact that the increased patient load and confusing and contradicting legal landscape has had on the commonwealth’s abortion providers.
In Philly, maternal mortality, health care inequities take center stage at abortion access hearing
The hearing, the second in a series of meetings about reproductive healthcare in Pennsylvania, focused on the impact abortion bans would have on Pennsylvania’s maternal mortality rate and the implications for OB-GYN physicians, as well as how advocates and providers are faring with an influx of out-of-state patients.
GOP opposition to proposed Wolf regs on carbon pricing; charter schools could shape coming months
Wolf, who has long called for charter school reform and a raise to the minimum wage, celebrated the commission’s decision, pushing back against accusations from Republicans by telling the commission the regulations are not outside of its jurisdiction.
Now a defender of personal freedom, Mastriano wanted to lift privacy rules in pandemic’s early days
In statements no longer available on his Senate website, the GOP governor hopeful said HIPAA regulations 'are threatening the lives of our citizens.'
Patient limits for nurses has majority support, but won’t advance in Harrisburg. Why?
The culprit is legislative rules that have troubled reformers and advocates in many fields, not just health care.
Will Pa.’s leaders prevent the collapse of the intellectual disability system? | Opinion
Leaders – from PA Speaker Cutler to House and Senate Appropriations leaders Saylor and Browne to PA party leaders from Republican AND Democratic caucuses have spoken with passion about the need to address the legitimate, crying need in this community.