sup, sub { font-size: 100% !important; } sup { mso-text-raise:10% } sub { mso-text-raise:-10% }
Click in for more news from The Hill
{beacon}
Health Care
Health Care
<!–
The Big Story
Senate Democrats demand answers on rural health fund
More than a dozen senators are calling for answers on how the Trump administration plans to use millions of dollars of a rural health “slush fund” included in the massive tax cut law.
A group of 16 Democratic senators led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) accused Republicans of using the $50 billion rural health program to buy votes for President Trump’s sweeping tax and spending package.
The money is meant to ease the burden of the law’s Medicaid cuts on rural hospitals. It helped assuage concerns of key senators, including Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
The Democrats asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for clarity and guidance on the fund in a letter sent Friday while also bashing it as a “wholly insufficient to plug the massive hole created by the Big, Ugly Betrayal.”
The law was paid for in large part with about $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, the largest since the program’s creation.
“We are alarmed by reports suggesting these taxpayer funds are already promised to Republican members of Congress in exchange for their votes in support of the Big, Ugly Betrayal,” the letter reads. “In addition, the vague legislative language creating this fund will seemingly function as your personal fund to be distributed according to your political whims.”
The fund will not make direct payments to rural hospitals. Instead, $25 billion will go to all states after they file “rural health transformation plans” which then must be approved by CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz.
CMS must make a decision on approving the plans by the end of the year.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow it to continue moving forward with canceling National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants over their connections to diversity initiatives. The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the court for an emergency stay that would stop Boston-based U.S. District Judge William Young’s ruling last month, which halted the cancellation and forced the government to reinstate several of the grants.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and 13 other Senate Republicans are urging the Trump administration to release National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding that has been held up for months. The GOP senators warned in a letter to White House budget chief Russell Vought that the “slow disbursement of funds” that Congress appropriated in March “risks undermining critical research and the thousands of American jobs it supports.” “Suspension …
The threat of rabies is becoming greater in the U.S., with public health officials warning people to stay safe and protect themselves and their pets from the deadly disease. Nassau County in Long Island, N.Y., declared a public health threat due to the spread of rabies in wild animals, with 25 confirmed cases in the past year, including raccoons and feral cats. Nearby Suffolk County also reported the first two cases of rabies …
A Texas man is suing a California doctor for allegedly providing his girlfriend with abortion medication. The lawsuit—a civil complaint filed in the federal court for the Southern District of Texas—accuses a physician named Remy Coeytaux of violating state and federal laws by mailing abortion pills to “murder” the “unborn child” of the plaintiff, Jerry Rodriguez. This is the first individual complaint concerning …
We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you have provided to them or that they have collected from your use of their services. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.
We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you have provided to them or that they have collected from your use of their services. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.
Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
Preference cookies enable a website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.
Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting information anonymously.
Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user and thereby more valuable for publishers and third-party advertisers.
Unclassified cookies are cookies that we are in the process of classifying, together with the providers of individual cookies.
