Category: Healthcare Reform

Open Enrollment for Healthcare Coverage

The Affordable Care Act (ACA; aka Obamacare) Health Insurance Marketplace begins its seventh Open Enrollment period today. American healthcare consumers can sign up on the federal insurance exchange at healthcare.gov or through their state marketplaces. In recent years there has been increased confusion surrounding Open Enrollment due to changes (and attempted changes) made to the ACA under the Trump administration, leading to the U.S. uninsured rate to rise for the first time since 2014 and the largest single-year increase since 2008.   When Obama was president and launched the ACA, Open Enrollment period ran 90 days beginning November 1 and […]

Planned Parenthood Forgoes Title X After Gag Rule

This week, Planned Parenthood withdrew from federal Title X funding rather than comply with the Trump administration’s “gag rule” prohibiting Title X grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion services. Title X funding is mandated to focus on family planning and related preventive health services for patients who are low-income or uninsured. Two-thirds of patients who benefit from Title X funding are at or below the federal poverty line. Providers have already been forbidden from using federal funds to pay for abortions since 1976. Planned Parenthood has been a controversial organization to many Americans since its beginnings in 1916. […]

National Women’s Health Week 2019

This past Mother’s Day launched the 20th annual National Women’s Health Week. Led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health, the goal is to empower women to make their health a priority and raise awareness of the steps one can take to improve their health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends many common measures, such as proper health screenings, staying physically active, eating healthy, and promoting other healthy behaviors. Healthy behaviors include getting enough sleep, being tobacco-free, washing your hands, not texting while driving, and wearing a seatbelt, a bicycle helmet, […]

LGBT Health Awareness Week 2019

The last week of March has been LGBT Health Awareness Week since 2003. We have explored some of the barriers to healthcare for the transgender community in previous blog posts, but it remains important to bring awareness to the unique healthcare needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and the health disparities that continue to affect the lives of so many Americans.   Experts report that LGBT people often avoid seeking out medical care or refrain from “coming out” to their healthcare provider. This compromises an entire community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals who are at increased […]

Medical Tourism: Travel Abroad to Save on Healthcare

The following blog post is an American’s first-hand experience of traveling to Mexico to save money on healthcare procedures. Names and exact locations have been changed/omitted, though the details are all true and have been verified by us at NeedyMeds.   It is no secret that healthcare in the United States can be prohibitively expensive. Because of this, many Americans opt to get their healthcare elsewhere. According to a 2015 report by the US International Trade Commission (USITC), between 150,000 and 320,000 Americans travel abroad every year to receive medical care. For uninsured Americans, the costs are often less than […]

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About Us

Welcome to the NeedyMeds Voice! We look forward to presenting you with timely, provocative pieces on healthcare reform, patient advocacy, medication and healthcare access, and other health-related news. Our goals are to educate, enlighten, and elucidate; together, we will try to make sense of the myriad and ongoing healthcare-related changes in the U.S. today.