Soon after Medicare, Medicaid, and the Hart-Celler Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, became law, the federal government began to label certain geographic areas as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs), which designated an inadequate number of physicians in relation to the population. HPSAs were generally populated with people who were low-income, elderly…
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After the House of Representatives passed bills to send $10 billion in funding to the Department of Homeland Security in January, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses published a demand that Congress abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “Nurses demand the removal of immigration enforcement agents from communities, the abolition of ICE, and accountability for this…
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Access to mental health care is rapidly expanding in Illinois, thanks to a legislative victory won through a grassroots campaign that united patients and health care providers to take on the power of the health insurance industry. As organizers who worked on the campaign, we’re excited to share the story of our win with the hope that it will give momentum and inspiration to similar campaigns in…
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have created a crisis in Minneapolis hospitals since escalating anti-immigrant operations in the Minnesota city in early December. Health care workers who spoke to Truthout report that the number of agents in hospitals has risen sharply since the beginning of the year, with ailing or injured detainees regularly brought into emergency…
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Chandra Hassan, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine, spent three weeks in Gaza in January 2024, treating patients who had survived tank shelling, drone strikes, and sniper fire amid Israel’s ongoing genocide. When Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis came under siege, Hassan and the MedGlobal doctors he was serving with were forced to flee.
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A coalition of frontline healthcare workers, unions, and economists launched an effort Thursday to build support for a proposed ballot measure in California that would impose a one-time tax on the state’s billionaires to avert a looming crisis spurred by national Republicans‘ unprecedented Medicaid cuts. The proposed ballot initiative, titled “The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act…
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