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Montana was on track to start reimbursing doulas, who support new and expectant parents, through Medicaid this year. But state officials halted that plan amid a budget shortfall. Other such services deemed optional under Medicaid are at risk nationwide as states brace for federal cuts.
Big swings in federal vaccine policy are giving some parents and clinicians whiplash. KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner appeared on WAMU’s “Health Hub” to break down the latest developments and their relation to growing cases of vaccine-preventable illnesses in the Washington, D.C., region.
North Carolina rolled out a $3.1 billion insurance plan for kids in foster care, but many doctors did not accept patients on the plan. The state is one of several experimenting with a model that has left kids’ guardians scrambling to find health care providers.
Behind their warm-and-fuzzy marketing, infant formula industry giants Abbott, maker of Similac products, and Mead Johnson, maker of the Enfamil line, have turned neonatal intensive care units into arenas of brutal competition.
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U.S. doctors are getting the word out about how to spot a rare measles complication that had been a relic of the past: subacute sclerosing panencephalitis. It affects a person years after a measles infection, often starting with mobility issues and progressing to paralysis. It’s nearly always fatal.
A top GOP pollster has said anti-vaccine policies could create risks for the Trump administration in the midterm elections. But backing away from those policies — and other initiatives that have been high on the Make America Healthy Again to-do list — threatens to upset a key voting bloc.
Dentists, hygienists, and researchers say a shortage of rural dental care professionals and worsening oral hygiene since the covid-19 pandemic mean more kids are ending up in the emergency room for tooth decay.
A year after Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, warily cast the vote ensuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ascension to Health and Human Services secretary, his life’s work — in medicine and in politics — is unraveling.
As the number of cases grows to about 1,000 in the Carolinas, health care workers who’ve never seen the vaccine-preventable disease can get caught by surprise.
Before being confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told U.S. senators he would not cut funding for vaccine research or change the nation’s official vaccine recommendations. He did both.
At a January event organized by allies of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., National Cancer Institute Director Anthony Letai said results may be released “in a few months.” Ivermectin, used to deworm horses and other animals, has become a symbol of resistance against the medical establishment among supporters of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and many conservatives.
Verite News’ reporters tested soil in more than 80 playgrounds for lead contamination. Even in trace amounts, lead exposure in children can result in lower IQs, learning challenges, and behavioral issues.
This installment of InvestigateTV and KFF Health News’ “Costly Care” series explores how administrative errors can leave patients on the hook for bills they shouldn’t owe — sometimes with few options to correct a problem they didn’t create.
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With lawmakers still mired over renewing enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans, much of Washington has turned to culture war issues. Meanwhile, “confusion” remains the watchword at HHS as personnel and funding decisions continue to be made and unmade with little notice. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Elisabeth Rosenthal, who wrote the latest “Bill of the Month” report.
Martha Santana-Chin, a daughter of Mexican immigrants, last year took the helm of L.A. Care, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan. She warns that looming federal cuts will push up to 650,000 people off L.A. Care’s Medicaid rolls by the end of 2028.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Congress returned from its break facing a familiar question: whether to extend the expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans that expired at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke a promise to Bill Cassidy, the chairman of Senate health committee, by overhauling the federal government’s childhood vaccine schedule to reduce the number of diseases for which vaccines will be recommended. Sarah Karlin-Smith of Pink Sheet, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more.
The CDC is recommending fewer childhood vaccines, although the ones it has jettisoned from the recommended schedule have successfully battled serious illness for years. Experts warn that if vaccine uptake falls, millions could be hospitalized — or worse — as a result of preventable diseases.
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