Health Headlines for Wednesday, January 24

U.S. lets more healthcare workers prescribe opioid addiction treatment

Reuters

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said on Tuesday it had changed a regulation to allow more healthcare professionals to prescribe a medication used to treat opioid addiction, opening up access in rural America where there are few doctors.

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Trump’s Medicaid Move May Actually Prod GOP States to Expand

NBC New York

In an ironic twist, the Trump administration’s embrace of work requirements for low-income people on Medicaid is prompting lawmakers in some conservative states to resurrect plans to expand health care for the poor.

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Do E-Cigarettes Help or Harm? Report Says Not Clear Yet

NBC New York

Electronic cigarettes could be a boon to public health or a major liability, depending on whether they help Americans quit smoking or encourage more young people to try traditional cigarettes, a new report concludes.

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Reducing Disparities in Access to Opioid Treatment

New York Times/Opinion

“Separate and Unequal Treatments” (Metropolitan section, Jan. 14), about racial disparities in access to opioid treatment, notes that our country’s legacies of structural racism and stigma toward people with substance use disorders affect the availability of methadone and buprenorphine.

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Aetna is fined by New York for leaking members’ HIV status

CNBC

Aetna will pay a $1.15 million civil fine and improve its privacy practices to settle charges that it leaked the HIV-positive status of 2,460 New York members in a mailing where it used envelopes with large transparent windows.

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Editorial: Smoking taking financial toll, too

Press Republican

It’s doubtful there is a smoker walking the Earth who isn’t well aware of the health risks taken on with every cigarette that is lit up.

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Cuomo to use Medicaid program to insure DACA recipients if feds kill program

Politico

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that New York State would use its share of Medicaid money to insure DACA recipients if the federal government terminates the program.

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Recommended Actions For States To Protect Their Health Insurance Markets

Health Affairs

For most of 2017, the policy debate in Washington centered on Republican proposals to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

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New Index Rates Drug Companies in Fight Against ‘Superbugs’

New York Times

GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson are the best of the big pharmaceutical companies at tackling the growing “superbug” threat, according to an index released Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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