USA Today
Health policy reporter for USA Today and author of They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq
PROFILE
Kelly Kennedy
Guest
FROM Kelly Kennedy
To the Point
CVS to Stop Selling Tobacco Products CVS/Caremark announced today it will no longer sell cigarettes or related tobacco products in 7600 pharmacies. The drug store giant accounts for about 2% of all tobacco sales nationwide — with its sales amounting to $2 billion. Kelly Kennedy is health policy reporter for USA Today .
To the Point
Healthcare Hearing Gets Heated On Capitol Hill today, Republicans zeroed in on the Obama Administration and contractors who built the troubled website for Affordable Care Act. Fred Upton of Michigan, Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, faulted top administration officials and contractors for failing to disclose problems with the online site, while New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone accused Republicans of "trying to scare everybody." Kelly Kennedy covers healthcare policy for USA Today .
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Calculating the Financial Costs of Gun Shootings A new report puts a price tag on gun violence: $12 billion a year, including $1.4 billion to US taxpayers -- for Medicare and Medicaid payments to treat victims in emergency rooms. The Senate Judiciary Committee today began debate on gun safety proposals in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. Chairman Patrick Leahy , Democrat of Vermont, held up a piece from yesterday's USA Today on how gunshot wounds are driving up the cost of health care. We hear from Kelly Kennedy, who wrote the story, and from RAND analyst and former emergency room physician Art Kellermann.
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Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.
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Terrorism and tweets, hate speech and murder Just days before an election, Britain is coping with a rash of deadly terrorism, and Prime Minister Theresa May is on the defensive. And again today, President Trump has tweeted criticism of the Mayor of London. Later, a double murder in Portland, Oregon has revealed the ugly past of a supposedly “progressive” city. One immediate question: is “hate speech” protected by the First Amendment?
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Is the threat from Russia missing from the Russia meddling probe? There's much being made about the Trump administration's possible ties with Russia. But the bottom line is Russia's effort to influence American democracy. Do the President and his aides care enough to take action before voters go back to the polls?
To the Point
The Trump agenda: where's the beef? President Trump says big things are happening. After celebrating a House bill on health care, he doesn’t yet have Senate agreement. With James Comey’s public testimony scheduled tomorrow, the President today tweeted his selection of a new FBI Director. Is the Chief Executive all style and no substance? Later, terror attacks in Iran and conflicting claims about who’s behind them.