In advance of this year’s World AIDS Day on Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined a blueprint to continue advancing recent gains in HIV education and treatment, eventually leading to a future AIDS-free generation.

Clinton cited the dramatically dropping number of new infections across the globe, the growing numbers of HIV-positive individuals gaining access to treatment, and the continued advances in scientific research as reasons to be optimistic about eventually eradicating new cases of AIDS for future generations:

CLINTON: Now, make no mistake about it: HIV may well be with us into the future. But the disease that it causes need not be. We can reach a point where virtually no children are born with the virus, and as these children become teenagers and adults, they are at a far lower risk of becoming infected than they are today. And if they do acquire HIV, they have access to treatment that helps prevent them from not only from developing AIDS, but from and passing the virus on to others.

Clinton also pointed out that some communities at risk for contracting HIV — such as drug users, men who have sex with men, and sex workers — are often driven “into the shadows” by societal stigma, shame, and discrimination, and global efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic must work to correct that. Recent research has confirmed that anti-gay stigma helps maintain the HIV epidemic by hampering the effectiveness of HIV advocacy programs, and homophobia continues to impede gay men’s access to HIV services.

Public health officials maintain that early detection of the HIV virus is one of the most important methods of containing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, so treatment can begin early and the virus can hopefully be contained. Earlier this month, a government-backed health panel endorsed regular HIV screening for everyone between the ages of 15 and 65, ensuring that HIV testing will now be covered under Obamacare.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced today that his state will participate in the optional expansion of the Medicaid program under Obamacare, one of the crucial methods that the health care reform law uses to extend coverage to previously uninsured Americans. An estimated 33,000 Missouri residents will be able to access health insurance thanks to Nixon’s decision to expand Medicaid.

“As Chief Executive for the state, I take my financial responsibilities very seriously,” Nixon said in the statement. “I trust that as others scrutinize the numbers, as I have, they will come to the same conclusion: that we can do the smart thing and the right thing for the people of Missouri.”

Republican governors across the country have been digging in their heels against implementing Obamacare in their states, claiming that covering more of their low-income residents under Medicaid would impose too much of a strain on their budgets — despite significant evidence to the contrary. But a statement from Nixon’s office noted that expanding Medicaid represents a “fiscally responsible move” for his state because the federal government will contribute 100 percent of the costs of expansion for the first three years, and 90 percent or more in the years after that. And on top of that, a report from earlier this week found that the additional funding from the federal government will help spur the local economy by creating 24,000 new jobs in the state in 2014 alone.

Nixon’s decision will help move his state toward implementing the Affordable Care Act after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature has repeatedly attempted to block Obamacare’s implementation altogether. In September, Missouri lawmakers voted to give employers the right to deny their employees coverage for contraceptive services — a method of circumventing Obamacare’s contraception mandate, which requires employer-based insurance plans to cover birth control without a co-pay. And on November 6, Missouri voters passed a meaningless anti-Obamacare ballot initiative to prevent their governor from moving forward with a state-based health exchange, another one of the health law’s tactics for lowering the uninsurance rate. Instead of preventing Obamacare’s implementation in Missouri, that vote actually left Nixon with no choice but to cede to the federal government, which will now step in and set up a health exchange for the state.

The news that Missouri will move forward with expanding Medicaid is especially good news for the state’s hospitals, which stood to lose about $400 million in funding without the Medicaid expansion. Some estimates projected that, if Missouri decided against expanding Medicaid, as many as 40 to 50 percent of rural hospitals in the state could have been forced to close.

Superstorm Sandy tore through the East Coast at the end of October, leaving significant damage and serious public threats in its wake — and now, a month and a presidential election later, some Americans still aren’t completely out of danger even though the news cycle has largely moved on.

The New York City Health Department is warning medical providers that although power has been restored in the city, thousands of New Yorkers are still living without heat in their homes, resulting in a soaring number of recent hypothermia cases. In the weeks after Sandy hit, cold exposure sent three times as many people to the emergency room compared to the same period in November between 2008 and 2011. And public health officials are worried that the problem will worsen in the upcoming winter months:

The department warned health care providers that residents living in unheated homes faced “a significant risk of serious illness and death from multiple causes.” [...]

And as temperatures dip, health officials said the cold could lead to other health problems, including a worsening of heart and lung diseases and an increase in anxiety and depression.

“My bigger concern is what happens in the future as we get closer to winter in the next four weeks,” Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, said in an interview. “There are probably about 12,000 people living in unheated apartments right now.”

Some people still living without heat are turning to ovens or gas-fueled space heaters, but public health officials advise against those temporary solutions because of the increased risk of fire and carbon monoxide poisoning. Without proper ventilation, back-up generators can cause unsafe levels of carbon monoxide in the air — and sure enough, in the week after Sandy, the number of cases of potentially fatal carbon monoxide exposure was more than 10 times higher than average, and 6 times as high the following week. The city’s health department also reported that calls to New York City’s poison center have increased over the past month.

New Yorkers’ increased risk of health dangers is especially problematic because the city’s hospital system is not yet operating at full capacity after the superstorm seriously damaged several medical facilities, forcing some hospitals that flooded and lost power to evacuate their patients to different locations. The director of trauma at Bellevue Hospital — New York’s flagship public hospital, which had to spread its staff and patients across other buildings after Sandy devastated its own facilities — told ProPublica that even though hospital staff has been holding it together so far to continue caring for their patients, the “current status of care in Manhattan is not sustainable for any length of time.”

Nevertheless, health care workers have been vigilant in working overtime to care for their patients, even in the compromised conditions brought about by Hurricane Sandy. With the fall months fading into winter, their work may not be done quite yet.

According to a study compiled by Oregon public health officials, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Americans are susceptible to a host of sexual and mental health issues at significantly higher rates than heterosexuals.

In addition to facing higher levels of food insecurity and poverty, the study finds that LGB adults are less likely to have access to health insurance and more likely to face sexual and emotional abuse than their fellow heterosexuals. As per the Oregonian, here are some of the report’s findings:

• Nearly twice as many LGB adults report frequent mental distress as hetero adults. One in five LGBQ youth report a suicide attempt in the previous 12 months compared with one in 25 heterosexual youth.
• More than one in three LGB adults report ever being sexually assaulted compared with one in eight heterosexual adults.
• Twice as many LGB adults reporting ever being hit, slapped, pushed, kicked or physically hurt by an intimate partner in their lifetimes as is reported among hetero adults.
• LGB adults are less likely than heterosexuals to have medical insurance.

Other studies have also confirmed that this segment of the American population encounters significant hurdles when it comes to insurance coverage and maintaining proper mental health.

The Los Angeles Times reports that several major health insurers — including Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna — are seeking to increase the premiums they charge individual policyholders in California by double digits.

The move by Anthem and its fellow insurers has drawn ire from consumers and watchdog groups from across the state, especially in light of the fact that medical inflation has been at historic lows over the past several years:

Anthem customer Ellie Podway, 55, of Pasadena said she and her husband received a letter the day before Thanksgiving informing them of a 14% rate increase to $881 a month, effective in February. Since 2010, Anthem has boosted the couple’s monthly premium 81%, she said.

“This is out of control,” Podway said. “You feel like you’re being sucker punched over and over.”

Anthem, a unit of Indianapolis insurance giant WellPoint Inc., isn’t alone in levying double-digit rate hikes.

Aetna, the nation’s third-largest health insurer, wants to boost premiums 19%, on average, for nearly 70,000 individual customers in California, effective in April. Woodland Hills insurer Health Net raised rates last month 14%, on average, for more than 30,000 individual policyholders and their dependents statewide. Blue Shield of California is expected to file for rate increases for individual customers next week.

Industrywide, health insurers have been helped by historically low increases in medical costs the last few years as consumers postponed doctor’s visits and other care to avoid out-of-pocket expenses in a sluggish economy. U.S. healthcare spending has grown less than 4% annually the last three years, according to government figures, the lowest rates in more than 50 years.

Anthem claims that the premium increases are necessary due to the rising cost of insuring health benefits, and claims the group will not rake in significant profits from the rate hikes. By contrast, however, California employers say that their health benefit costs only rose by about 5.5 percent, and the nonprofit Kaiser Permanente is seeking a far more modest 8 percent increase in its rates — suggesting that such drastic hikes aren’t actually essential.

It’s difficult to keep health insurers in check in an era of rising medical costs, particularly on the individual policyholder market, although the health reform law does include important consumer protections to help safeguard Americans from predatory practices. Come 2014, Obamacare hopes to drive premium costs down by forcing insurers to compete with one another on statewide insurance exchanges, giving Americans on the individual and small business markets increased bargaining power. The health law also contains a “medical loss ratio” provision — dubbed the “80/20 rule” — that requires insurers to spend 80 cents of every premium dollar they charge on actual health care services rather than their own overhead or profits.

This week, one of Ohio’s top lawmakers announced that the state Senate will not attempt to push through two pieces of restrictive abortion legislation during this session, including a “heartbeat” bill that would have represented the most stringent abortion ban in the nation. Arizona’s 20-week abortion ban currently earns the dubious distinction of being the country’s toughest abortion restriction, but Ohio’s bill would have moved the goalposts even further by seeking to outlaw the procedure as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected — which can occur as early as 6 weeks, before many women even realize they’re pregnant.

Ohio Senate Speaker Tom Niehaus (R) acknowledged on Tuesday that the heartbeat measure is too controversial to reach consensus even among anti-choice groups, and he wants to hold off on a vote this year so that abortion opponents can come to an agreement on the bill. But that’s not good enough for some of the right-wing activists in the state, who are still demanding that Republicans find a way to jam the legislation through:

Janet Folger Porter, president of the conservative action group Faith2Action, said she’ll work to collect 17 Republican signatures on a discharge petition, which can be used to force the so-called “heartbeat bill” out of a committee.

“Unless pro-lifers want to hold signs and march for 40 more years, they should pick up the phone and call every Republican senator and demand a floor vote for the Heartbeat Bill before their inaction kills it,” Porter said in a statement. “These Republicans have the power to bring the Heartbeat Bill to a vote before it dies.”

Even though Republicans haven’t seen much recent success with radical abortion initiatives — voters largely rejected anti-choice legislation on November 6, as well as the anti-choice candidates who sparked controversy with their campaigns’ focuses on restricting abortion access — Faith2Action isn’t the only far-right group clinging to a failing agenda.

Anti-abortion groups like Personhood USA and the Susan B. Anthony List are still busy pressuring lawmakers to continue supporting legislation to limit women’s reproductive access, and conservative lawmakers in states like Arkansas are already gearing up to advance that type of agenda next year. And when former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently suggested that Republicans might want to reconsider their focus on limiting abortion rights in order to build a broader coalition, spokespeople for the two groups harshly criticized him for betraying the party’s mission.