A bill introduced in the DC City Council would allow covered DC workers to take up to 16 weeks of paid leave in a year, at full pay for those who make up to $52,000 annually, to address their own serious medical conditions, bond with a new child, care for a seriously ill family member, or deal with deployment-related issues.
The death toll from last week’s stampede at the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca has passed 700; on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s health ministry reported 769 deaths and 934 people injured. Basma Attasi reports for Al Jazeera that the stampede occurred when two waves of pilgrims collided — but that there are conflicting reports about why […]
Last week, 203 business-school faculty members from 88 institutions across the US wrote an open letter to members of Congress stating, “It is time to ensure that the entire United States workforce has access to paid family and medical leave.”
Recent pieces address the idea of shifting funds from Planned Parenthood to community health centers; the effectiveness of Washington, DC’s needle exchange; the spread of tickborne diseases; and pieces by and about neurologist and author Oliver Sacks.
Women's Health
Private foundations fund another year of Colorado’s successful family planning program
A group of foundations has provided another year of funding for a program that has greatly expanded access to IUDs and allowed the state’s teen pregnancy rate to plummet. Will the Colorado legislature start picking up the tab next year?
Last week, an In These Times piece by Sharon Lerner presented an alarming statistics: Nearly one in four employed US mothers return to work within two weeks after giving birth.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics has published an early release of findings on US health insurance coverage from January – March 2015, and the numbers show a continued decline in the number of US residents without health insurance. The report presents findings from the National Health Insurance Survey, and the headline estimate is […]
Recent pieces address why only the rich can afford to write about poverty, the crisis in federal funding for family planning, CDC’s plea for funding to address antibiotic resistance, and how San Francisco politics make its housing so unaffordable.
Last week, Nigeria met an important milestone: An entire year without a reported case of polio. This leaves just two countries where polio is endemic.
On July 30th, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendment Act that created Medicare and Medicaid. Today, the two programs cover nearly one in three people in the US.