logo
House bill introduced to improve treatment of postpartum depression

House bill introduced to improve treatment of postpartum depression

Yahoo22-02-2025

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WIAT)– A bill has been introduced that creates new care for postpartum depression in mothers of newborns.
Postpartum depression is a mental health condition where a mother feels sad, anxious or overwhelmed for an extended time after childbirth. It can be treated using therapy or medication.
Supreme Court clears way for lawsuit over COVID-19 pandemic-era unemployment claims in Alabama
HB322 would require doctors to assess new mothers for postpartum depression and refer them for treatment. The cost of this treatment would be funded by Medicaid. This bill also calls for the creation of educational material on postpartum depression to be distributed to new mothers and their families.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Frances Holk-Jones (Republican, Baldwin County) and co-sponsored by five other representatives. It was referred to the House Health Committee.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Biden's COVID czar hammers RFK Jr. over vaccine panel overhaul
Biden's COVID czar hammers RFK Jr. over vaccine panel overhaul

Yahoo

time16 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Biden's COVID czar hammers RFK Jr. over vaccine panel overhaul

Former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha, who served under former President Biden, criticized the decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to fire all 17 experts on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) vaccine panel. Kennedy announced the decision in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Monday, saying, 'A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.' But in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Jha pushed back against Kennedy's reasoning. 'Look, what he said in his op-ed was a series of nonsense about a group of individuals, experts …who shape what vaccines, if any, are going to be available to the American people,' Jha said in the interview. 'So obviously this is very concerning,' he continued. 'We'll have to see who he appoints next. But this is a step in the wrong direction.' Jha said he is concerned about what the move foretells about the secretary's agenda on vaccines. Jha pointed to what he characterized as a lackluster response from the secretary to 'the worst measles outbreak of the last 25 years.' He also expressed concern regarding Kennedy's raising questions about vaccines causing autism, which Jha dismissed and said was 'settled science.' 'Then you put this in the middle of all of that,' Jha said, referring to the vaccine panel sweep, 'and what you have is a pretty clear picture that what Secretary Kennedy is trying to do is make sure that vaccines are not readily available to Americans, not just for kids, for the elderly.' 'He could go pretty far with this move, and I really am worried about where we're headed,' Jha continued. He said he's particularly concerned about the effect Kennedy's move will have on kids and whether they will continue having access to certain vaccines in the future. 'Kids rely on vaccines. I'm worried about whether the next generation of kids are going to have access to polio vaccines and measles vaccines. That's where we're heading. That's what we have to push back against.' Kennedy said in his op-ed that he was removing every member of the panel to give the Trump administration an opportunity to appoint its own members. Kennedy has long accused members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of having conflicts of interest, sparking concern among vaccine advocates that he would seek to install members who are far more skeptical of approving new vaccines. But Jha pushed back against criticism that the panel was all Biden-appointed experts, saying, 'When the Biden administration came in, almost all of the appointees had come from the first Trump administration.' 'That was fine because they were good people,' he said. 'They were experts. Right now, it's the same thing. The people he is firing are experts — like a nurse in Illinois who spent her entire career getting kids vaccinated, cancer doctors from Memorial Sloan Kettering — like these are really good people.' 'And generally, CDC has not worried about when were they appointed. The question is, are they good and are they conflict free.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

New law brings managed care to people with intellectual disabilities
New law brings managed care to people with intellectual disabilities

Yahoo

time16 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

New law brings managed care to people with intellectual disabilities

Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, and House Speaker Daniel Perez, right. (Photos by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed into law priority legislation for House Speaker Daniel Perez that addresses how people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) receive health care. There were fears in the IDD advocacy community that DeSantis was going to veto the bill but he signed HB 1103 into law without any ceremony or a press conference. He acted three days after receiving it and while the House and Senate met in an extended session to craft the next state budget. Jim DeBeaugrine, a former Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) director and now a lobbyist, praised language that requires the agency to make public information about the number of people served in the Medicaid waiver program known as iBudget, plus the number of individuals on the waiting list, broken down by the counties in which they live. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Federal Medicaid law provides coverage for health care services to cure or ameliorate diseases but generally doesn't cover services that won't. Specific to IDD, Medicaid covers the costs of institutional care but not of home- and community-based services that, if provided, can help people with IDD live outside of institutions. Former Gov. Jeb Bush applied for a Medicaid waiver to provide these services to people with IDD. Eligible diagnoses include disorders or syndromes attributable to intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, autism, spina bifida, Down syndrome, Phelan-McDermid syndrome, or Prader-Willi syndrome so long as the disorder manifested itself before the age 18. But the program is underfunded and has had lengthy waiting lists on which sometimes people have lingered for more than a decade. The Legislature has required APD to provide it with information about the program but while the information was once easily publicly available, the DeSantis administration stopped posting it online. The bill requires the information to be made public again. 'You know, APD has gotten hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years. And I think it'll help to hold the agency accountable. And it's good for the public, particularly the advocacy community, to understand what happens with those dollars, how many people we're funding, whether the dollars are being spent for services,' DeBeaugrine told the Florida Phoenix Tuesday. 'You know, the rub on all of this is that the agency used to publish that data without the law telling them to. But since they stopped, I believe this is a positive step towards re-establishing accountability and transparency.' The law also involves a Medicaid managed-care pilot program launched at the behest of then-House Speaker-Designate, now speaker, Perez in 2023. The pilot was designed to care for up to 600 individuals and was approved for Medicaid regions D and I, which serve Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Hardee, Highlands, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties. The state received federal approval for the pilot in February 2024. The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) issued a competitive procurement for the pilot with two vendors, Florida Community Care and Simply Healthcare Plans Inc., vying for the contract. AHCA eventually awarded the contract to Florida Community Care. Three hundred and fifty eight people were enrolled in the pilot program as of May 5. During testimony before the House Health and Human Services Committee in February, Carol Gormley, vice president for government affairs for Independent Living Systems, attributed the slow start-up to administrative barriers on APD's part. Independent Living Systems is the parent company of Florida Community Care. The new law lifts the 600-person cap on the pilot program on Oct. 1, expanding enrollment statewide for qualifying disabled people on the Medicaid iBudget wait list. There are 21,000 plus people on the waitlist, according to a legislative analysis. In a statement to the Florida Phoenix Tuesday, Gormley lauded DeSantis and the Legislature for their 'commitment to expanding and improving services for persons with disabilities. 'We look forward to the opportunity to extend the comprehensive benefits offered through the pilot program to families who choose to participate,' she said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

Alabama hemp businesses bracing for impact with crackdown weeks away
Alabama hemp businesses bracing for impact with crackdown weeks away

Yahoo

time16 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Alabama hemp businesses bracing for impact with crackdown weeks away

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WIAT) — Hemp companies in Alabama said they are working hard to abide by new state regulations. Those regulations will take effect in the form of a new law July 1. Hemp companies said it will kill small businesses, while the sponsor said it's long overdue. 'They're kind of pulling the rug out from under us and going backwards in the industry,' said Blake Gamberi, owner of Dry Creek Wellness in Glencoe. 'I'm sorry to those folks who it's going to be negatively affecting for sure,' said Carmelo Parasiliti, owner of Green Acres Organic Pharms in Florence. The crackdown caps THC levels to 10 milligrams per serving in a product and bans it for people under 21. The original bill sponsor, state Rep. Andy Whitt, R-Harvest, said gas stations have become pharmacies for some people. 'Anytime that you have to reach between the motor oil and the beef jerky to get a product that you're going to smoke and/or take to medicate or get high, that is not good for the state of Alabama,' Whitt said. Gamberi said the new law is confusing, but they are working to get their products in compliance. 'We got high hopes that they'll get everything in line and make it where we don't have to close our doors …,' Gamberi said. 'It's a very short time period to adjust something that you've done over four or five years, even longer than that.' Parasiliti said they are keeping their doors open but moving some of their business to other states. 'It's a lot of work ahead of us, but we're going to keep going and keep trying,' Parasiliti said. Alabama Department of Public Health determines there are no active measles cases in the state David Beck, owner of The Humble Hemp Shack in Gadsden, said it will probably have to close down altogether. 'It's a very scary feeling, and a scary feeling for our customers as well,' Beck said. Whitt said those customers will now be able to get a product that is safely tested by a third party. He said the law does not legalize marijuana but does not ban hemp products. 'It was time to get these products under control for the safety of our citizens and the safety of our kids and get a handle on it,' Whitt said. 'It lets there be an authority that can actually oversee this product.' Whitt said that authority, the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, will soon release guidelines for businesses on how it will enforce the law. Products outlined in the law will be banned July 1. Whitt said businesses will be able to start the licensing process to sell hemp products with the ABC Board in January. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store