Healthcare & Policy News
Reporting on health care policy, insurance coverage, and federal health programs. Includes news updates and conservative commentary from The Daily Signal.
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news
‘Full of Hope’: How Pro-Lifers Convicted for Praying Outside Abortion Clinics Spend Christmas in Prison
Ten pro-lifers are spending Christmas in prison this year after being convicted for praying outside abortion clinics and trying to persuade abortion-minded women to save their babies. While the advocates for unborn life look forward to freedom, many seek to use their incarceration to share the hope they hold and the true meaning of Christmas… -
news
UnitedHealthcare Covers Double Mastectomies for 17-Year-Olds With Gender Dysphoria
America’s largest health insurance company covers double mastectomies for some 17-year-old girls who identify as transgender. UnitedHealthcare’s “Gender Dysphoria Treatment” guide, which took effect Dec. 1, says: “For mastectomy or breast reduction, individuals must be at least 18 years of age; however, individuals within one calendar year of turning 18 can be considered on a… -
opinion
Supreme Court Set to Consider Medicaid Coverage for Abortion
A case just taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court—Kerr v. Planned Parenthood—might just be the sleeper hit of the October 2024 term. At issue is public funding for abortion, something that pro-life states have been keen to limit for some time. The justices will consider the following question: Do Medicaid recipients have the right… -
opinion
Happy MAHA Christmas: RFK and America’s Health Movement
Crunchy moms who have spent years telling their child’s pediatrician they want to limit the vaccines their child receives may soon have an advocate in Washington, D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to head the Department of Health and Human Services, is spending the week before Christmas meeting with senators on… -
news
Public Trust in Health Agencies Gone, Former CDC Director Says
Americans don’t trust public health institutions, the virologist who used to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. “We have lost public trust, there’s no doubt about it, and it really harms public health in a big way,” Robert Redfield said Wednesday during an event at The Heritage Foundation, adding, “We’ve lost, I think,… -
opinion
Why Is American Health Care So Bad?
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge. How did American health care get so bad? Why do we tolerate a system where you go bankrupt for a hip replacement? Compared to socialized medicine, on almost any metric the U.S. has one of the best medical… -
opinion
2 of Every 3 Abortion Facilities in US Shuttered Since 1990, Report Says
More than two out of every three abortion facilities in the United States have closed their doors since 1990—but abortion still represents “a dark, bloody, hopeless stain on humanity,” according to a new report released Tuesday. A total of 667 abortion facilities currently do business in America, according to Operation Rescue’s 2024 annual survey of abortion… -
news
Catholic Health Care System Partners With Pro-Abortion Virtual Women’s Health Clinic
The Catholic health care system CommonSpirit partners with an online women’s health clinic that offers abortion pills and referrals for surgical abortions. CommonSpirit Health announced in 2021 it would partner with Ask Tia to create “a new front door to health care for women.” The partnership, uncovered by the pro-life organization Save the Storks, “enables… -
opinion
Make America Healthy Again: Sanders Calls for Ban on Using Food Stamps for Junk Food
One governor is fed up with taxpayers subsidizing junk food—and hurting the long-term health of their fellow Americans. Food stamps—formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—“is undermining the health of millions of Americans, on the taxpayer’s dime, by encouraging families to eat highly processed, unhealthy junk food,” writes Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in… -
news
Parents Outraged Maine School Clinic Could Give Students Confidential ‘Reproductive Health Care’
A Maine high school may open a new health clinic that would give students confidential “reproductive health care.” At other school-based health centers, that term has been a euphemism for transgender drugs and birth-control prescriptions. Maine School Administrative District 11 voted on Dec. 5 to review the contract for a school-based health center that can… -
opinion
CDC Report Reveals Significant Shift in National Abortion Statistics Since Dobbs Ruling
Pro-life laws in some states are saving lives, according to the annual “Abortion Surveillance” report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s report covers 2022. Roughly half of it accounts for abortion under the Roe v. Wade regime, before the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 ruling that allowed abortion… -
opinion
Disrupting the Health Agencies Will Save American Lives
The public health establishment and left-wing media are rushing to discredit President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead health agencies. The New York Times smears them as “outside the medical mainstream.” Circling the wagons, Dr. Paul Offit, a current adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, lamely observes, “What they’re saying when they make these appointments… -
news
EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Call for Accountability on Federal Funding for Abortion Giants
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A coalition of Republican lawmakers wants to investigate how much federal funding goes to abortion providers including Planned Parenthood. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, House Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Robert Aderholt, and Rep. Claudia Tenney led a bicameral letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office requesting a report on federal funding… -
opinion
Lobbyists Mobilize Against Kennedy’s Healthy Eating Agenda
America’s most famous fast-food fan may be an unlikely candidate to make America healthy again, but President Donald Trump seems willing to tackle the eating habits that have led to skyrocketing rates of obesity. The junk food industry is not lovin’ it. RealClearInvestigations has learned that representatives of companies that make snack foods, sugary beverages,… -
news
Pro-Life Leader: 3 Ways Democrats Are Turning Abortion Into a ‘Sacrament’
Democrats are making abortion into a “sacrament” by completely eliminating doctors from the process, glorifying the act, and deregulating the procedure, according to the president and CEO of the world’s largest pro-life organization. Shawn Carney is the president and founder of the annual 40 Days for Life campaign, which has just concluded in a record… -
news
Michigan Democrats Want to Teach Minors About Abortion as ‘Family Planning’ Option
Michigan Democratic lawmakers have sponsored a bill to remove the state’s ban on teaching abortion as a “method of family planning” from the sex education curriculum. State Rep. Rachel Hood, D-Grand Rapids, introduced an overhaul of Michigan’s sex ed standards, crossing out the sentence: “Clinical abortion shall not be considered a method of family planning,… -
news
Which Major Corporations Fund Travel for Abortion?
At least 42 companies in the Fortune 100 pay for employees to travel for an abortion in states where it isn’t available, according to a new report from the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center. Forty-two companies is likely an undercount because coverage for abortion travel is becoming standard in many health care plans for… -
news
Harris Gambled and Lost in Making Abortion Her Campaign’s Top Issue, Poll Finds
Many assumed Vice President Kamala Harris, as a woman, would have secured the vote among young women in the 2024 presidential election. However, according to an exit poll from The Associated Press, that was not the case. It turns out at least 40% of Gen Z women who are under the age of 30 chose to vote… -
opinion
Voters Put Abortion in Their State Constitutions
Abortion was on the ballot Tuesday in more ways than one. Nationally, Kamala Harris’ campaign increasingly emphasized the issue, claiming that electing Donald Trump again would lead to a “national abortion ban.” And voters in 10 states had the opportunity to amend their state constitutions to protect a right to abortion. Here are the results…. -
news
Emergency Room Visits Appear to Rise After FDA Relaxed Abortion Pill Restrictions
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The emergency room visitation rate for abortion complications appears to have increased since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration removed guardrails on the use of the abortion pill. A U.S. federal court on July 13, 2020, temporarily stopped the FDA from requiring that mifepristone, or the abortion pill, be dispensed in…