Texas lags nation in health insurance coverage rate in census data
WASHINGTON — While health insurance coverage has broadly expanded across the country since implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, many impoverished communities continue to lag behind, according to census data released Thursday.
Overall, the nation’s uninsured population fell to 8.7 percent in 2020, from 15% in 2013.
In Texas, however, American Community Survey results released Thursday show the uninsured rate was twice the national average — 17.3%, which was 3 percentage points more than the state with the next-highest uninsured rate, Oklahoma.
Texas also had eight of the 10 congressional districts in the country with the highest uninsured populations. All but nine of the state’s 36 congressional districts were in the bottom 10% of insurance coverage rates nationwide, according to ACS data for 2020.
The state also housed the congressional district with the highest uninsured rate in the country, the 29th Congressional District. In the Houston district held by Democratic Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia, 31% of the population did not have health insurance, the 2020 data found.
—CQ-Roll Call
Washington governor: Idahoans can undergo abortions in his state if Idaho restricts it
BOISE, Idaho — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday said his state will protect Idaho residents’ access to abortion procedures as he signed a bill solidifying some health care workers’ ability to perform abortions and forbidding Texas-style punishment for providers.
Washington’s bill updated its Reproductive Privacy Act to formally include physician assistants and advanced registered nurse practitioners as clinicians who can perform abortion procedures. The bill also prevents the state from penalizing or punishing people who perform or assist in abortions.
Inslee said the bill comes at “a perilous time” and was spurred by other states’ moves to restrict abortion — particularly recent moves made by Idaho lawmakers.
“To the citizens of Idaho, if Idaho will not stand up for your constitutional rights, we will,” Inslee said as he signed the bill.
Idaho lawmakers on Monday approved a bill that would allow families to sue clinicians who perform abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The bill is headed to Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s desk. He will have five days to veto the bill after receiving it.
—Idaho Statesman
Tick-borne virus transmitted in Georgia, study finds
ATLANTA — The Heartland virus, a potentially fatal tick-borne virus first identified in Missouri in 2009, has taken root in Georgia, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection reported Wednesday.
The virus isn’t passed by breathing, but by blood. The Georgia discovery came when Emory University researchers found Heartland virus here in lone star ticks, a type of small tick that is prevalent in the state.
Scientists already knew that one Georgia person had been infected, but they couldn’t be sure where. They also knew the Heartland virus is harbored by lone star ticks. The study’s findings make it likely that the Georgia patient caught the virus from a tick bite in Georgia, said Emory University Associate Professor Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, whose lab worked on the research.
Since Heartland virus was identified in 2009, about 50 cases have been identified in 11 mostly Midwestern states, many of them severe, according to the study. However, testing for Heartland virus is not common, so the people who get diagnosed tend to be those who are already very sick and have doctors hunting for causes. Scientists suspect there have been many more cases that are mild or moderate and never get noticed.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Russia’s bond payment is in limbo as countdown to default begins
Russia’s Finance Ministry said that it has sent payment orders for the interest on its dollar bonds to its correspondent bank, giving incremental details on a debt settlement that has come to exemplify how Moscow plans to handle its future relations with creditors.
It sent the order for a $117 million coupon payment on March 14 to a correspondent bank that it didn’t identify, adding that it would issue a separate comment if the paying agent, Citibank’s London branch, has received the payment, according to an emailed statement.
So far, European bondholders of Russia’s sovereign debt have received no sign of the funds, although growing optimism that the bonds may be settled is spurring prices higher across maturities.
What happens next is unclear, but if Russia’s creditors don’t get the cash in dollars within the 30-day grace period that starts on Thursday, it would be the first time the nation defaulted on foreign-currency bonds since the Bolsheviks repudiated the czar’s debts in 1918. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the nation has all the resources it needs to avoid a default.
—Bloomberg News
