Author: Scott Welch
The number of people testing positive for monkeypox has plunged in California, with the seven-day average of new cases down about 95% since the peak of the outbreak in early August. Though health experts caution that the virus threat hasn’t disappeared, progress in fending it off so far constitutes a major public health success. The ...
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a family leave bill today that will enable lower-income workers to recoup up to 90% of their income when they take time off to care for a new child or a sick family member. That will be a boost from the current program and will apply to those who make as ...
After the CVS acquisition of Signify Health, there is another retail store-primary health care merger – Walmart Inc. and UnitedHealth Group announced Sept. 7 a 10-year, wide-ranging collaboration that is expected to serve millions of people with high-quality, affordable health services that both companies promise will improve health outcomes and the patient experience.
A bipartisan bill in the House aims to fix a costly enrollment mistake that some older adults make when they transition to Medicare from an employer-based health plan. Under current rules, workers age 65 or older who leave their job but keep their company’s health insurance as allowed under federal law — the Consolidated Omnibus ...
Just weeks after securing a federal court win allowing their merger to go forward, UnitedHealth Group has completed its controversial acquisition of Change Healthcare. The insurance giant announced the deal’s closure on Monday morning. In the release, UnitedHealth touts the companies’ shared vision for making the healthcare system simpler and more adaptive to the needs of payers, providers and ...
Dr. Steven-Huy Han, a UCLA liver specialist, has prescribed Ocaliva to a handful of patients, although he’s not sure it helps. As advertised, the drug is lowering levels of an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase in their blood, and that should be a sign of healing for their autoimmune disease, called primary biliary cholangitis. But “no ...
Gov. Steve Sisolak Thursday announced the launch of ArrayRx, a prescription drug discount card, which he said will help Nevadans save up to 80% on generic prescription drugs and 20% on name brand prescription drugs regardless of income, age, or citizenship.
The Food and Drug Administration wants to update its rules for which foods can be branded “healthy.” The proposed label rule aims, in part, to address a question as old as medicine: What does it mean for a food to be healthy? It would update the “healthy” label guidelines from 1994 to match up-to-date nutrition ...
Financial advisors and investors are weighing the implications of the latest rate hike by the Federal Reserve last week. The Fed announced it will raise benchmark interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point and indicated that more increases likely are ahead. The latest rate hike is the third consecutive .75% percentage point move and ...
Almost 2 million of California’s poorest and most medically fragile residents may have to switch health insurers as a result of a new strategy by the state to improve care in its Medicaid program.