What do you really know about Medicaid? Take our quiz and find out.
What do you really know about Medicaid? Take our quiz and find out.
Medicaid will be at the center of talks this week on Capitol Hill as House Republicans consider how to cut a program that is the primary source of health insurance coverage for low-income populations. Paid for by the federal government and states (as well as D.C.), Medicaid is a lifeline for many groups, including children and seniors.
Members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care, are charged with finding $880 billion in savings, which they can't do without touching Medicaid. Yet some lawmakers say they won't vote for a bill that scales back a program on which many of their constituents rely.
How much do you know about how Medicaid works? Test your knowledge with our quiz:
Story continues below advertisement
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Turn ‘anger into action,' says Kentuckian leaving American Medical Association presidency
Outgoing American Medical Association (AMA) President Bruce A. Scott, of Louisville, speaks before the House of Delegates, his last time as president. (Screenshot) In his final address as president of the American Medical Association, Kentucky's Dr. Bruce A. Scott called on the medical community to turn its 'anger into action' to protect the medical safety net now under threat in Congress. Scott, an ear, nose and throat specialist from Louisville, closed out his term as president of the AMA by slamming insurance denials and Republican proposals in Congress that he said threaten the future of medicine. 'The same House bill that brings us closer to finally tying future Medicare payment to the rising cost of running our practices also takes a step backwards by limiting access to care for millions of low income Americans,' Scott said. 'Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act are literal lifelines for children and families for whom subsidized health coverage is the only real option.' He added: 'We must do all we can to protect the safety net and continue to educate lawmakers on how best to target waste and fraud in a system without making it tougher for vulnerable populations to access care.' In late May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the controversial spending and tax package, dubbed the 'big, beautiful bill' by President Donald Trump who supports the measure. Many health advocates are warning it will hurt hospitals and patients. The bill, which is now in the hands of the Senate, proposes deep cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state program that pays for almost 1 in 3 Kentuckians' health care. The AMA is working 'to target the Senate as we work for improvements in this bill,' Scott said. He called for more legislative advocacy, saying that 'the times call for some anger' but 'we can channel that anger into positive action.' Among other things, Inside Higher Education reports that the bill could 'entirely reshape the student loan system.' This, Scott said during his farewell address to the AMA House of Delegates Friday in Chicago, complicates the future for an already dwindling physician workforce. The proposed lending practices in the bill would make medical education 'virtually unaffordable for many students,' he said, calling that 'simply unconscionable.' Kentucky has a well-documented physician shortage. The Kentucky Medical Association reports that most counties don't have enough primary care providers. 'Our nation should be working to bring down the cost of medical education, not erecting barriers that defer brilliant young minds from pursuing this noble profession,' he said. Meanwhile, Scott said, 'our patience is being tested by this new administration and Congress.' 'Despite all the efforts of everyone in this room and our colleagues across the country, our health care system is failing in fundamental ways. It's failing physicians and, more importantly, it is failing our patients,' Scott said. 'I'm angry because the dysfunction in health care today goes hand in hand with years of dysfunction in Congress. Physicians are bearing the brunt of a failed Medicare payment system, and while our pay has been cut 33% in 25 years, we see hospitals and even insurance companies receiving annual increases. Congress needs to know that there is no 'care' in Medicare if there are no doctors.' In addition to federal policy, Scott criticized insurance companies that deny doctor-recommended care. He said he recently had a patient with a large tumor pushing into her eye that he needed to remove surgically. Her insurance provider initially denied the procedure, recommending 'an antibiotic and a steroid nasal spray' first. 'Are you kidding me?' Scott said. 'An antibiotic and a nasal spray to treat her tumor? Without seeing the patient, without talking to the patient, without completing even one single semester of medical school, this insurance representative determined that she knew more than the patient's doctor.' Such denials lead to confusion and stress for patients, Scott said, and frustration for doctors that eventually 'become too much to overcome' and force people to leave the profession. This, he said, is 'a system that is undermining our judgment and eroding our patients' trust.' 'What insurance companies are doing to our patients is wrong,' Scott said. 'Stepping between us and our patients is wrong. Denying necessary and even life saving care is just plain wrong.' Scott's term as AMA president ends Tuesday. Michigan's Dr. Bobby Mukkamala was elected as his successor last year. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
Dementia isn't inevitable. Here's how to reduce your risk.
Your chance of developing dementia at some point is uncomfortably high. Forty-two percent of Americans older than 55 will develop the condition during their lifetime, a recent Nature Medicine study estimates. It's also on the rise: More than 500,000 had it in 2020; by 2060, that's expected to double.
WIRED
an hour ago
- WIRED
What Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets Do to the Human Body
Jun 10, 2025 6:30 AM So-called 'less-lethal' weapons like those that have been used against demonstrators in Los Angeles can cause severe, lasting harm like nerve or brain damage or blindness. They can also kill. Photograph:As protesters in Los Angeles clashed with law enforcement this weekend over the Trump administration's immigration raids, police employed military-style tactics, including using tear gas, flash grenades, and pepper-spray projectiles on demonstrators. In one instance, Lauren Tomasi, a reporter with Australia's 9News, was shot with a rubber bullet fired by law enforcement during a live broadcast. Though not explicitly designed to kill, these so-called 'less-lethal' weapons can cause serious health effects—and, in some cases, lasting harm. The use of these weapons can result in respiratory problems, head injuries, and even death. In the United States, police force of all types results in 75,000 nonfatal injuries requiring hospital treatment and 600 to 1,100 deaths every year, according to the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project at the University of Illinois Chicago. The types of health effects and injuries can vary depending on the weapon being used. Tear gas and pepper spray, types of chemical irritants, can cause tearing, pain, and burning of the eyes, skin irritation, sore throat, sneezing, coughing, and vomiting. Tear gas usually refers to 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (agent CS) or chloroacetophenone (agent CN), which work by activating pain receptors in the eyes, nose, mouth, and lungs. Pepper spray is highly concentrated pepper oil, oleoresin capsicum (agent OC), which produces a powerful burning sensation. 'The short-term effects are immediate and severe,' says Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Center and a professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. In some cases, people can experience respiratory distress, difficulty breathing, and asthma-like symptoms. Long-term effects are less common but can include asthma, wheezing, loss of vision, and even nerve or brain damage, Calello says. These problems can occur if people are exposed to a large amount of these chemicals or they are sprayed in a closed space. People who smoke or have existing respiratory asthma are at higher risk of developing health problems from exposure to these chemicals, as are children. Because these agents are heavier than air, they linger close to the ground, meaning children can be exposed to higher levels. Protesters use milk to wash out tear gas from each other's eyes in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Photograph:A 2014 study by the US military has also found that exposure to tear gas and pepper spray make people vulnerable to respiratory infections in the week following exposure compared with the week before exposure. Army recruits exposed to CS tear gas just once during basic training had a much higher likelihood of developing respiratory illnesses such as viral illnesses like influenza, pneumonia, or bronchitis. That study and others led the American Thoracic Society in 2020 to call for a moratorium on the use of tear gas and other chemical agents during racial justice protests. One worry was that their use could increase the chances of getting sick with Covid-19. 'The science used to justify the use of tear gas is outdated,' says Sven-Eric Jordt, an associate professor of anesthesiology, pharmacology, and cancer biology at Duke University School of Medicine who helped author the American Thoracic Society recommendations. Much of the research into the health effects of exposure to tear gas and other chemical agents is based on military research that was conducted in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s on young, healthy men. He says those studies do not address the potential health effects on a broader civilian population. They also don't take into account more advanced launching technologies developed in recent years that allow for the deployment of much higher amounts of tear gas over longer distances. In some cases, the effects of these agents are not due to the chemicals themselves. 'People can be injured when in contact with the canisters used to disperse the gas, and this can include blunt trauma or burn injuries,' Calello says. In Los Angeles, federal agents reportedly fired hard plastic pepper balls, also known as pepper spray projectiles, at protesters. Injuries can also occur from blunt-tipped rubber bullets. Their name is a bit misleading, says Rohini Haar, an emergency physician and medical adviser at Physicians for Human Rights, considering many rubber bullets are actually made of hard plastic or foam and some even have a metal core. 'They're not less lethal if they're used lethally,' says Haar, who is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley. 'There are many, many instances of them causing death, and there's also a lot of trauma that can be caused, even if they don't penetrate the skin.' The biggest concern comes if these projectiles hit the neck or face, especially the eyes. There have been cases of rubber bullets causing blindness, traumatic brain injury, and disfigurement, and less seriously, broken bones in other areas of the body. A 2017 study by Haar and her colleagues found that around 3 percent of people hit by rubber bullets died from the resulting injury, while 15 percent of the 1,984 people studied were permanently injured. A 2020 analysis released by Physicians for Human Rights and coauthored by Haar found that at least 115 people suffered head injuries when law enforcement officers shot them with rubber and plastic bullets during the first two months of US protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd. In 2020, the American Academy of Ophthalmology called on domestic law enforcement officials to end the use of rubber bullets and similar projectiles to control or disperse crowds of protesters. If you are exposed to tear gas or pepper spray, experts recommend getting away as quickly as possible, finding higher ground, and covering your mouth and nose. When it's possible, remove contaminated clothing and wash with copious amounts of soap and water. If experiencing severe symptoms, seek medical attention immediately. If you plan to attend a protest, consider wearing closed-toe shoes and long sleeves. Eye protection and N95 face masks can also help lessen exposure.
