Medicaid Expansion Arrives In North Carolina For Hundreds Of Thousands

AP: Hundreds Of Thousands In North Carolina Will Be Added To Medicaid Rolls This Week
A decade after the federal government began offering expanded Medicaid coverage in states that opted to accept it, hundreds of thousands of adults in North Carolina are set to receive benefits, a development that boosters say will aid hospitals and local economies in addition to the long-term uninsured. North Carolina elected officials agreed this year to expand Medicaid, which will provide the government-funded health insurance to adults ages 19 to 64 who make too much money to receive traditional Medicaid but generally not enough to benefit from public subsidies available for private health insurance. The federal government will pay 90% of the cost, as stipulated under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. (Robertson and Schoenbaum, 11/30)

In news about the opioid crisis —

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Vows To Crack Down On Drug Known As 'Tranq' 
Amid a growing drug overdose crisis and debate over how the state should respond, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced he will sponsor legislation to increase penalties for the trafficking of xylazine, the deadly and flesh-rotting animal tranquilizer drug known as “tranq.” Newsom administration officials provided few details on what the bill might include other than it would classify xylazine as a controlled substance and increase criminal penalties for illegal trafficking of the drug. Veterinary use would still be allowed. (Sosa, 11/29)

Kansas City Star: Missouri Lawmakers Push New Charges For Fentanyl Dealers
In the days after she lost her daughter to fentanyl in June 2021, Jamie Fisher began calling Independence police to find out what the department was doing to investigate her death. When she died, Samantha “Sami” Fisher, 23, had one photo on her new cellphone — which she had taken that day — of three pills that her family said she believed were Percocets. “My three little Percs,” she had written about the pills. In reality, they were fentanyl. (Bayless and Bauer, 11/29)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Medical Examiners Struggle To Keep Up With Autopsies For Overdose Deaths In NH
Less than half of the people who died of suspected drug-related deaths in New Hampshire this year received autopsies. The National Association of Medical Examiners recommends that an autopsy be performed whenever a drug-related death is suspected. The most recent data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner shows that there were 327 confirmed and 61 suspected drug overdose deaths in 2023 so far. 157 of the confirmed deaths and 30 of the suspected overdose deaths had autopsy examinations. (Harris and Ganley, 11/29)

In other health news from across the U.S. —

Reuters: Colorado Paramedics On Trial For Elijah McClain's Death 
Two Colorado paramedics went on trial on Wednesday for their alleged role in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died after police roughly detained him and medics injected him with a powerful sedative. The trial is the last of three involving the death of McClain, 23, who a bystander reported as looking suspicious, but who was not alleged to have committed any crime. The first trial ended with one police officer found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and another acquitted. The second ended with a third officer acquitted. (Brooks, 11/29)

Los Angeles Times: Analysis Of EMS Data At California Migrant Detention Sites
An investigation published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. found discrepancies between emergencies at California immigrant detention facilities that were reported to local authorities and those reported publicly by the federal government. (Castillo, 11/29)

Minnesota Public Radio: Children's Minnesota Served 660 Kids In Inpatient Mental Health Unit's First Year
Exactly one year ago, Children’s Minnesota opened it’s first inpatient mental health unit. It serves children as young as six and is one of the few in the state to admit kids with more complex medical conditions — and also one of the few in the country to allow parents or guardians to say overnight with their child. (Wurzer and Kuznetsov, 11/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Reno Is Beating The Odds In Solving Homelessness 
The “Biggest Little City in the World” is earning a new distinction: one of the few cities in the West to get large numbers of homeless off its streets. The city teamed with Sparks, a neighboring city, and surrounding Washoe County to build a Nevada Cares Campus in 2021 that could accommodate more than 600 people in a giant tent and satellite sleeping pods. Since that year, the number of homeless living on the street has plummeted to 329 this year from 780, according to annual point-in-time counts. (Carlton, 11/29)