Your City, Your News
January 23, 2025
For years, patients in the U.S. health care system have grown frustrated with a bureaucracy they don’t understand. Doctors are included in an insurer’s network one year but not the next. Getting someone on the phone to help can be next to impossible. Coverage of care and prescriptions is often unceremoniously denied. This week’s fatal
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Planned Parenthood wanted to resume offering abortions in several Missouri clinics on Friday, immediately after a newly passed constitutional amendment rolling back the state’s near-total ban took effect, but they remain on hold as a complicated court battle drags on. The issue is that the amendment does not specifically override
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The U.S. government on Friday ordered testing of the nation’s milk supply for bird flu to better monitor the spread of the virus in dairy cows. Raw or unpasteurized milk from dairy farms and processors nationwide must be tested on request starting Dec. 16, the Agriculture Department said. Testing will begin in six states —
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KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The World Health Organization said Friday it was deploying experts to investigate a mystery flu-like illness that has killed dozens of people in southwest Congo in recent weeks. “All efforts are underway to identify the cause of the illness, understand its modes of transmission and ensure an appropriate response as swiftly
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LONDON (AP) — An alternative healer who advocated “slapping therapy” to treat a range of maladies was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for the death of a 71-year-old diabetic woman who stopped taking insulin during one of his workshops. Hongchi Xiao, 61, was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence for failing to get
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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Democrats are pushing this month to pass legislation they say will improve reproductive health care, in particular the safety of digital health data, ahead of Republicans taking over the state House in 2025. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is backing a bill designed to protect reproductive health data including data logged
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One of the country’s largest health insurers reversed a change in policy Thursday after widespread outcry, saying it would not tie payments in some states to the length of time a patient went under anesthesia. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield said in a statement that its decision to backpedal resulted from “significant widespread misinformation” about
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A message left at the scene of a health insurance executive’s fatal shooting — “deny,” “defend” and “depose” — echoes a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims. The three words were written on the ammunition a masked gunman used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to two law enforcement
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NEW YORK (AP) — When SmileDirectClub shut down a year ago, scores of existing customers of the teeth-straightening company were left in limbo. Now, tens of thousands are set to get some relief. New York Attorney General Letitia James has announced that her office recovered $4.8 million to distribute nationwide to more than 28,000 consumers.
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Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death. The panels — called maternal mortality review committees — usually do their work quietly and out of the public eye. But that’s not been the case recently in three states with strict
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