FDA Warning, Medicaid for Work, Paid Sick Leave Needed
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FDA Warning
The FDA warned that fezolinetant (Veozah), a hormone-free pill for moderate to severe hot flashes caused by menopause, could cause rare but serious liver injury.
If women experience any signs or symptoms suggesting liver injury, they should stop fezolinetant, the agency said. Symptoms include new-onset fatigue, nausea, vomiting, pruritus, jaundice, pale feces, dark urine, or right upper quadrant pain.
Treatment discontinuation may prevent worsening liver injury and may potentially return liver function to normal, the FDA explained.
Prompting the warning was a postmarketing report submitted to the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database in which a patient had elevated liver blood test values and signs and symptoms of liver injury within 40 days of starting the drug.
The patient experienced symptoms of fatigue, nausea, itching, yellow eyes and skin, light-colored stools, and dark urine. Labs indicated alanine transaminase (ALT) was more than 10 times the normal level, alkaline phosphatase was more than four times the normal level, and total bilirubin was more than three times the normal level.
Symptoms gradually resolved and blood test values slowly returned to normal after the patient stopped fezolinetant.
The agency detailed new requirements for liver blood testing on the updated label. Healthcare providers should perform baseline liver blood tests to assess liver function prior to starting treatment, including ALT, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase, and total and direct bilirubin. Providers should not start treatment if the concentrations of ALT, AST, or total bilirubin are equal to or exceed two times the upper limit of normal (ULN). (MedPage Today)
Medicaid Work Requirement - FAIL
The Affordable Care Act allowed states to choose to expand Medicaid to people who are at 1.38 x the Federal Poverty limit. While it sounds like the states would be picking up a lot of the cost for those newly enrolled it turns out that almost all the cost is borne by the Federal government.
An analysis of data from the National Association of State Budget Officers shows expansion increased total Medicaid spending between 2015 and 2019. However, state Medicaid spending decreased or remained flat over the same timeframe. despite increasing enrollments.
Additional analysis of state Medicaid spending found expansion was associated with a 4.4 percent to 4.7 percent reduction in state spending on traditional Medicaid, consistent with other findings. You can read a Commonwealth Fund report on it here and learn how states budgets improved by insuring more people.
TAKE NOTE: More people insured less cost to the state.
Anyway, The Trump Administration allowed states to put in place a work Requirement to get Medicaid. Georgia was one of a number of states that decided to do that. Not expand Medicaid to the 1.38 x Federal Poverty level limit - just demand that you work to receive Medicaid.
Georgia is the only state that currently requires certain Medicaid beneficiaries to work to get coverage. After a lengthy approval process with the federal government the program finally was up and running in 2023. It requires participants to document that they’re working, studying, or doing other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month in exchange for health coverage.
Republicans have long touted such programs, claiming they encourage participants to maintain employment. About 20 states have applied to enact Medicaid work requirements; 13 won approval under the Trump administration.
Georgia’s GOP leaders have spent millions of dollars to launch this experiment, Pathways. By July 29, 2024 nearly 4,500 people had enrolled. The goal was more than 25,000 in its first year. Let me point out that had they expanded Medicaid 359,000 would have health insurance and we have already seen that they would save money doing it.
PS - This debacle has cost at least $26 million extra, with more than 90 percent going toward administrative costs and consulting fees, not health care.
There are also a host of problems with the system. The program’s lengthy questionnaires and technical language are confusing, guidance is opaque, and tools to upload documents are tricky to navigate, according to interviews with health insurance enrollment specialists conducted for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
It costs more to be cruel. They spent millions more to enroll 4500 and left 359,000 out in the cold even though it would have had a positive effect on their state’s budget and cost them less every year.
Universal Healthcare is the answer, not this kind of cruelty.
Paid Sick Leave Needed
If you work then you need to be able to take off from work and not be penalized. I may not have mentioned it in this venue, but that is how health insurance started in the late 1800s in Germany. So-called sickness funds were established to take care of industrial workers and their families when illness or injury struck. Bismarck chose to implement this across the newly united Germany because he knew that in order to become a world power, he needed industry, and industry needed capable, loyal, an d healthy workers. He knew workers would be loyal if they knew that they were well cared for,
Well, here about 140 years later in the richest nation on Earth we are still demanding that for workers.
The United States is one of only two major countries that does not provide any paid time off for workers with short-term illnesses. Lacking access to sick leave, workers are forced to make untenable choices between getting a paycheck and keeping their jobs on the one hand and caring for their own and their family’s health on the other.
Currently 34 million American workers in the U.S. lack paid sick time entirely, including 25 percent of the private sector workforce and nine percent of the public sector workforce. Paid sick leave is particularly inaccessible among low wage workers. Less than a third of private sector workers in the bottom ten percent of income have access to paid sick leave.
Fourteen states and Washington DC have implemented state-level paid leave protections. Many cities and counties have also passed local sick time laws as well. Everyone deserves to be able to go to the doctor, care for a sick child or loved one and not go into debt for missing work.
Good News - there is a bill in the House and Senate that would make sick leave available to those who need it. It is S. 1664/H.R. 3409, the Healthy Families Act of 2023. Here is a good summary from Senator Bernie Sanders’ website.
ACTION
You can contact your Member of Congress and Senators, https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials and let them know that 34 million Americans don’t have paid sick leave and need it and they should enact S. 1664/H.R. 3409, the Healthy Families Act of 2023.
Or use RESISTBOT via [Apple Messages / WHATSAPP / MESSENGER] or by texting SIGN PYZOHF to 50409 on your cell phone to send this message.
“I am your constituent and I want you to know that 34 million Americans do not have access to paid sick leave.
Everyone deserves to be able to go to the doctor, care for a sick child or loved one and not go into debt for missing work.
Good News - there is a bill in the House and Senate that would make sick leave available to those who need it. It is S. 1664/H.R. 3409, the Healthy Families Act of 2023. I want you to get it to a vote and passed. If you think families are important here is something you can do to show me.”
RESOURCES
Find My Elected Officials
Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email
Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water RESISTBOT write up
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