Trending News Today: State Regulators Voice Opposition to Short-Term Non-Obamacare Health Plans

The FDA on Friday approved Natural Cycles, the first-ever app designed to prevent pregnancy, STAT reported. According to the article, the FDA approved the app as a medical device, using a regulatory pathway reserved for low-to-moderate risk devices. The app works by asking women to take their temperature when they wake up as part of a daily log in its interface, using the data to help women keep track of when they’re ovulating, the article reported. According to the FDA, the app’s typical-use failure rate was approximately 6.5% in large-scale clinical trials.

State regulators are pushing back against the Trump administration’s new policy of expanding the sale of short-term insurance non-Obamacare health plans, The Hill reported. According to the article, state insurance officials argue that the short-term plans are bad for consumers and aren’t an adequate substitute for comprehensive insurance. Additionally, insurers have said that allowing plans to operate outside of Obamacare could create a secondary market and steer healthy people away from Obamacare, the article reported.

A new study has found that older women with osteoporosis who consistently take medication may reduce their risk of fractures and have lower total health care costs than those who stop taking their medications, Reuters reported. According to the article, researchers examined data on 294,369 women who were at least 66 years old, insured by Medicare, and prescribed osteoporosis medicines for the first time at some point between 2009 and 2011. Overall, women who persistently took their prescribed drugs experienced lower annual fracture rates than non-persistent users. Additionally, total health costs for patients who didn’t take medications as prescribed were $19,181 per year, compared with $14,476 for women who did, the article reported.