Your Weekly Dose of Health June 12, 2015

Time is running out and the NYS Senate needs to hear your voice! Contact Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and urge him to support S.4893, which clarifies the prescriber prevails language and ensures prescribers have final say over medication decisions!  Click here for more information.

The Department of Health released the names of all the companies vying for a medical marijuana license in New York.  Forty three companies have successfully completed the application process for one of the five licenses.  The Department of Health will make their final decisions sometime in July.

Meanwhile, New York City’s Board of Health took a step to require sodium warnings at restaurants.  New York City would be the nation’s first city with such a requirement.

This week, the state Senate voted for a bill to ban the sale of powdered alcohol.  Senator Schumer has called for a ban on the Federal level.

In today’s online New York Times’ “Room for Debate”, the Times asks whether the Affordable Care Act has “proved its worth”.  Four experts respond in brief essays.  Read them here.

The New York Times wrote an editorial this week arguing that if Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies for states that haven’t set up their own health exchanges are invalidated by the Supreme Court, Congress should pass a one sentence bill clarifying the law.  That is unlikely, as House Republicans are opposed to the AC, and would not get behind such a bill.  The editorial ends by urging states to create their own contingency plans, should the Supreme Court rule against the ACA subsidies.

The Obama administration also has urged states and congress to act and mitigate the effects should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the plaintiffs in the case threatening the Affordable Care Act.