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health care

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ER doctors call private equity staffing practices illegal, seek to ban them

Physicians call on Attorney General Stein to investigate growing national trend A group of emergency physicians and consumer advocates in multiple states are pushing for stiffer enforcement of decades-old statutes that prohibit the ownership of medical practices by corporations not owned by licensed doctors. Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia (including North Carolina) have rules on their books against the so-called corporate practice of medicine.

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Millions of workers are dealing with long COVID. Advocates call for expanding social safety net.

Emily Withnall caught COVID-19 from her teenager in July 2020. In the more than two years since, the 40-year-old has suffered from debilitating ...
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News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Hampered by opposition from doctors’ groups, nurse practitioners want to change state law to give them more freedom to treat patients

Cindy Cross was diagnosed with breast cancer about 15 years ago and found compassionate medical care when she first visited Michelle Taylor Skipper’s office in Laurinburg.   Cross has been a patient of Skipper’s ever since, and her two adult daughters see her, too.

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

Lawmakers should let veto of disingenuous anti-abortion bill stand

Though we are only halfway through 2021, this has already been the most catastrophic year for reproductive freedom in the United States since 1973 when Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to an abortion. Eight states have passed unconstitutional abortion bans, and two, Oklahoma and Arkansas, have passed laws that seek to prohibit abortion in nearly all circumstances.

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Law and the Courts Top Story

Biden Administration moves to tighten hospital price transparency regulations

Democratic and Republican officials agree that hospitals must make "standard charges" easily accessible to consumers For years, North Carolina hospitals hid the prices for their services. Now under a federal rule, they are required to disclose the listed prices and insurance-negotiated rates, but some are doing it slowly and secretly.

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On its 56th anniversary, America’s most popular and effective health care program needs an upgrade

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare, his “number one priority,” into law. On July 1, 1966, using primitive communication techniques such as post cards and door-to-door canvassing, the vast majority of Americans over 65 were enrolled. Today Medicare is our most popular and cost-effective health insurance program.

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Top Story Weekly Briefing

Modest medical marijuana bill comes up short, highlights the unfairness of NC’s healthcare system

State senators took a small, but positive step last week when they advanced Senate Bill 711 – a proposal to legalize medical cannabis/marijuana. As numerous witnesses – including military veterans struggling with PTSD and other service-related illnesses, as well as others battling the ravages of cancer and chemotherapy...

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

Nothing but racism explains Black women’s higher rate of horrible birth stories

Tatyana Ali, who starred as Ashley Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from 1990 to 1996, entered Harvard the next year where she double majored in government and African-American studies. In 2016, Ali and her husband, an English professor at Stanford, welcomed their first child, but only after mother and baby were roughly treated by a hospital’s obstetrics team, she testified Thursday to the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee.

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News Top Story

Heartbreaking stories of Black maternal deaths, pregnancy complications, racism related at congressional hearing

WASHINGTON — When U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri was pregnant with her first child, Zion, she saw a sign in her doctor’s office encouraging her to speak up about anything unusual she was feeling. She did so, telling her physician that she was having severe pains, but her concerns were swiftly dismissed. The doctor told Bush, who is African American, that she was fine and sent her home — and one week later, Bush went into early labor.

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Other Voices Progressive Voices Top Story

Health care professionals condemn proposed abortion ban in open letter to legislative leaders

Scores of NC physicians, nurses, clinicians, and counselors say bill racing through state House would foster "environment of fear, stigma, and interrogation" Editor's note: Republicans in the North Carolina House and Senate are once again advancing legislation to restrict abortion access. As Policy Watch has reported here and here, two committees in the House of Representatives have already given approval to a proposal...

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Law and the Courts News Top Story

The Supreme Court could strike down Obamacare. Here’s what’s at stake.

WASHINGTON— The fate of the sweeping 2010 health care law known as Obamacare is again in limbo, with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday scheduled to hear arguments over whether the statute should be overturned. States are at the heart of the case; nearly every one has made an argument about why the Affordable Care Act, as it's officially titled, should be kept or struck down.

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COVID-19 Other Voices Top Story

Love and death in the time of COVID

A caregiver for her terminally ill friend contracted COVID. Not only did it make dying — and grieving — more difficult, but it also unveiled the shortcomings of the U.S. health care system.

My best friend didn’t die of COVID-19. But COVID-19 would make a huge difference in the way she died.

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COVID-19 Progressive Voices Top Story

GOP COVID relief bill fails to help people in need — here’s how

In HB 1105, General Assembly leadership acknowledges that North Carolina families and communities face enormous hardships, but makes only token gestures to help people survive the COVID-19 pandemic North Carolina can and should allocate the remaining federal COVID-19 relief funds to meet the pre-existing needs that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

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Must Reads News Top Story

Report: Medicaid expansion would “profoundly improve” physical, economic health of rural NC

Medicaid expansion is not just a moral imperative — it could provide a much-needed tonic for the fiscal ailments that many rural hospitals face in North Carolina. Legislative leaders’ refusal to expand Medicaid has deprived hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians of lifesaving medical care and has left rural hospitals dangling in the fiscal winds.

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