The Georgia House on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow an individual to carry a concealed handgun without first getting a license from the state. Senate Bill 319 is one of a handful of gun proposals introduced in the Georgia General Assembly this year. Georgia pediatricians have concerns about the potential effects of these bills…
By Dr. Hugo Scornik As the organization that represents over 1,800 pediatricians and pediatric subspecialists in Georgia, our Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has watched with dismay the advance of several permissive gun bills in this year’s state legislative session. This is especially true of our brave pediatric emergency medicine and…
By Jack Bernard Many years ago, I had lunch with Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a distinguished health care economist, who was a speaker at a national conference for hospital CEOs put on by the organization employing me. In a good-humored way, he made clear to me that the United States did not have the best health…
A virus unknown until a little more than a decade ago is circulating among lone star ticks in Georgia, Emory University scientists say. Heartland virus was first identified in Missouri in 2009 in two severely ill individuals. “We don’t know how many people are infected’’ with Heartland, said Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, associate professor in Emory’s Department…
By Michael McAuliff Democrats in the Senate are primed this month to make their first attempt at salvaging one of the most popular elements of President Joe Biden’s stalled Build Back Better plan — the proposal to cap insulin costs at $35 a month. It might not go well. That’s true even though the idea of…
The Georgia House passed legislation Tuesday that could give Medicaid coverage to thousands of uninsured residents who have HIV. The chamber approved House Bill 1192 with a bipartisan 136-14 vote. If enacted by the General Assembly, the legislation would instruct the state’s Department of Community Health to apply to the feds for a waiver that…
By Drew Kann, Shelia Poole and Nick Thieme This article is reprinted courtesy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Lanetra Tucker used to live in an apartment just a block away from Crawford W. Long Middle School. Most days, her children made the short walk to and from the campus in south Atlanta, in the shadow of Hartsfield-Jackson…
By Markian Hawryluk Jenni Mahnaz admits she’s not much of a dog person. She’s mildly allergic and the only pet she had as a child was a hermit crab. But once she learned that specially trained dogs could help her daughters with their medical needs, she was willing to do anything to make it happen. Her…
By Andy Miller and Rebecca Grapevine The CEO of an insurance industry trade group said Wednesday that insurer members are not opposed to the medical spending requirements for Medicaid managed care plans contained in a mental health parity bill. Among its provisions, the high-profile House Bill 1013 would set up a minimum level of medical…
By Jordan Rau and Andy Miller Medicare has penalized 21 Georgia hospitals for having the highest rates of patient infections and potentially avoidable complications. That’s up slightly from the 18 hospitals in the state that drew penalties in the last round of federal assessments. For the penalized hospitals, Medicare payments are reduced by 1% for…