The Trump administration's decision to roll back access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act has been blocked temporarily by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, Buzzfeed reports. The new rules went into effect in October and allowed employers and universities to decline providing birth control coverage for "religious or moral" reasons.
Why it matters: The ruling is one of several recent court orders blocking a Trump administration law. Trump's series of travel bans as well as his order preventing transgender troops from serving in the military have also been halted in court.
It's busy at our call center today! If you call and are asked to leave your name and phone number, please do so. A call center rep will call you back after Dec 15 to make sure you have Marketplace coverage that starts Jan 1. You may also visit https://t.co/eTfU7hBbyh to enroll.— HealthCare.gov (@HealthCareGov) December 15, 2017
People who are “in line” to sign up for insurance through HealthCare.gov by the end of the day today will be allowed to finish the process later, the Health and Human Services Department says.
Why it matters: The last day of open enrollment tends to be especially busy, and in the past, some consumers haven’t been able to make it all the way through the process before the end of the day. HHS’ standard practice has been to let those consumers to finish up later, but but the department hadn’t said definitively until today whether that practice would continue this year.
Researchers at George Mason University have developed a urine test to identify tuberculosis cases, per New Scientist. The method — which worked successfully on 48 people with TB —provides a diagnosis within just 12 hours, compared to days for existing skin and sputum culture tests.
How it works: The test can detect a sugar on the surface of TB bacteria that is present in low concentrations in the urine of those infected.
Why it matters: TB killed about 1.7 million people last year. "In around 40 per cent of cases, the infection isn’t identified until symptoms become obvious," writes Andy Coghlan in the New Scientist. The urine test, which the researchers hope to have publicly available within three years, could allow for the rapid identification of the disease.
A new law backed by opioid distributors and manufacturers is making it harder for the Drug Enforcement Administration to hold companies accountable for violating drug laws, according to retired DEA investigators.
The officials' accounts are the latest component of a deep-rooted investigation by the Washington Post and "60 Minutes," which initially exposed how the drug legislation was derailing the DEA's efforts to crack down on the opioid epidemic. That investigation ultimately led to the withdrawal of Rep. Tom Marino's drug czar nomination.
A new poll from the progressive Public Policy Polling finds just 29% of Americans support the GOP tax plan after learning it would remove the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act.
Why it matters: The PPP survey also found 57% of voters surveyed approve of the ACA, which is five points up from September polling and makes it far more popular than the tax plan. A recent poll from another progressive group, Priorities USA, that found electoral support for Republican incumbents dropped by 6 percentage points when voters saw ads detailing how the GOP tax plan would make cuts to Medicare.
