Health Care

Governor signs bills aimed at addressing prescription drugs, protecting vulnerable adults

BY: - December 8, 2023

On Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a number of bills including policies aimed at reducing prescription drug costs, protecting vulnerable adults from sexual abuse and coercion, and establishing institutional desecration as a crime.  House Bill 4276, sponsored by Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) seeks to increase transparency and expand oversight of costs tied to prescription […]

Whitmer signs repeal of nation’s only immunity law that shielded drugmakers from legal liability

BY: - December 7, 2023

With the stroke of a pen, Michigan’s one-of-a-kind law that prevented state lawsuits against drug manufacturers, is no more. On Thursday morning in Flint, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a repeal of a nearly 30-year-old law that gave drug manufacturers immunity if their drugs caused harm for Michiganders.  “Imagine if the prescriptions you take […]

CDC director in Detroit: ‘COVID is still causing the most number of hospitalizations’ in Michigan

BY: - December 7, 2023

During a visit to Detroit on Thursday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Mandy Cohen encouraged Michiganders to be vaccinated for COVID-19 as well as a flu shot as Americans celebrate the holiday season and the winter months approach.  Cohen said over the course of the several days that there have been about […]

Settlement secures additional $110 million supporting Michiganders with disabilities

BY: - December 7, 2023

Earlier this week the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ) and Disability Rights Michigan announced a pending settlement that, if approved, will bring more than $110 million in state spending to Michiganders with intellectual and developmental disabilities who rely on Medicaid Community Living Support services.  While subject to Legislative and other approvals, the […]

Whitmer signs specific criminal penalties for assaulting health care workers into law

BY: - December 6, 2023

Violence against health care workers has been on the rise in the U.S. for years, with many individuals in the field marking a particular uptick during the COVID-19 pandemic. But a bipartisan package of bills in Michigan signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, creates specified criminal penalties for assaulting health care […]

When foster care kids are sex trafficked, some states fail to figure it out

BY: - December 6, 2023

When she was a 10-year-old foster child, T Ortiz often rode a public bus around the San Francisco Bay area, alone. She’d frequent a bus stop by a barber shop. Little by little, the barber, who was 15 years older, befriended her, she said — buying her snacks and meals, giving her attention, gaining her […]

COMMENTARY

Resolution of the abortion issue will be a seminal test for our democracy

BY: - December 6, 2023

Shrouded in hypocrisy, entangled by complexity and ensnarled in a battle for control, the abortion issue will be a real test of the structure of our democratic form of government. Will there be a new overarching federal law along with specific state laws governing abortion? It is a central focus in the 2024 presidential election, […]

Survey finds strong support for legislation aimed at further restricting and reducing tobacco use

BY: - December 5, 2023

A package of tobacco prevention legislation has strong support among Michigan voters surveyed in a telephone poll over the summer. That’s according to Keep MI Kids Tobacco Free Alliance, a coalition of more than 120 public health organizations and associations, hospital systems and education groups, including the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics […]

COMMENTARY

Susan J. Demas: How Michigan became the progressive powerhouse of the Midwest

BY: - December 4, 2023

For years, Michigan was a national laughingstock, as bad news stalked the state like the villain in a bad ‘80s horror film. There was the one-state recession of the early aughts, thanks to the bruised auto industry that almost collapsed during the Great Recession that followed, and two partial state government shutdowns.  Then came Republicans […]

Businessman Sandy Pensler joins jammed GOP field for Michigan U.S. Senate seat

BY: - December 1, 2023

Saying he wants to take the “Senate back from the morons,” Grosse Pointe Park businessman Sandy Pensler is making another run for U.S. Senate, announcing via a video Friday morning that he has joined the race for the Republican nomination to replace Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Lansing, who announced earlier this year she would […]

DeSantis and Newsom clash in TV debate, charging each other with lies and bullying

BY: - December 1, 2023

Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gavin Newsom from California, two of the nation’s most well-known governors who sit on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, engaged in a fiery 90-minute debate on Thursday night from Alpharetta, Georgia, which was broadcast live on the Fox News Channel. The stakes were undoubtedly higher for DeSantis, 45, who […]

COMMENTARY

Column: Studies, class-action suit link hair relaxers to cancer. Black women are at risk.

BY: - December 1, 2023

When I saw reports about a National Institutes of Health study that found women who used chemical hair straighteners known as relaxers were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer than those who didn’t, a sulfur-scented flashback zapped me back to my first experience getting my hair relaxed. I was 10 or 11, […]