KHN Weekly Edition: Aug. 19, 2022

Local Health Officials to Feds: Where’s the Rest of Our Monkeypox Vaccine?
By Jackie Fortiér, LAist Los Angeles County is getting 60% fewer doses of monkeypox vaccine than officials expected, after the FDA said every vial could be split into five shots.

Upended: How Medical Debt Changed Their Lives
By Noam N. Levey and Aneri Pattani and Yuki Noguchi, NPR News and Bram Sable-Smith People talk about the sacrifices they made when health care forced them into debt.

After Wiping Out $6.7 Billion in Medical Debt, This Nonprofit Is Just Getting Started
By Yuki Noguchi, NPR News Nonprofit RIP Medical Debt buys up unpaid hospital bills plaguing low-income patients and frees them from having to pay.

For Medically Vulnerable Families, Inflation’s Squeeze Is Inescapable
By Heidi de Marco Inflation hasn’t hit Americans like this in decades. And families living with chronic diseases have little choice but to pay more for the medicine, supplies, and food they need to stay healthy.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Wrapping Up Summer’s Health News
President Joe Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act and Congress is gone until after Labor Day. But the administration and lawmakers left lots of health policy achievements behind, including new rules to facilitate the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids and a potential reorganization of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Indiana’s New Abortion Ban May Drive Some Young OB-GYNs to Leave a State Where They’re Needed
By Farah Yousry, Side Effects Public Media Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indiana OB-GYN, was publicly vilified for providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim. That treatment and new abortion restrictions in the state have left some medical residents reconsidering whether they will practice in Indiana.

More Communities Are Giving Flavored Tobacco the Boot. Will California Follow?
By Zinnia Finn San Jose and Sacramento this summer joined scores of other California cities and counties that have banned the sale of flavored tobacco products such as menthol cigarettes and candy-flavored e-cigs. In November, California voters will decide whether to allow a statewide ban to take effect.

For Kids With Kidney Disease, Pediatric Expertise Is Key — But Not Always Close By
By Colleen DeGuzman A study published in JAMA leads to questions about the uneven distribution of pediatric nephrologists nationwide. Children with end-stage kidney disease feel the impact.

Buy and Bust: Collapse of Private Equity-Backed Rural Hospitals Mired Employees in Medical Bills
By Sarah Jane Tribble The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.

Public Health Agencies Adapt Covid Lessons to Curb Overdoses, STDs, and Gun Violence
By Katheryn Houghton Know-how gained through the covid pandemic is seeping into other public health areas. But in a nation that has chronically underfunded its public health system, it’s hard to know which changes will stick.

Some Rural Hospitals Are in Such Bad Shape, Local Governments Are Practically Giving Them Away
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio Coming out of the pandemic, many rural hospitals are in even rougher shape than before. So rough that some are now practically being handed to investors for little more than a pledge to keep them open.

Community Health Centers’ Big Profits Raise Questions About Federal Oversight
By Phil Galewitz and Bram Sable-Smith Nonprofit federally funded health centers are a linchpin in the nation’s health care safety net because they treat the medically underserved. The average profit margin is 5%, but some have recorded margins of 20% or more in three of the past four years.

On the Wisconsin-Illinois Border: Clinics in Neighboring States Team Up on Abortion Care
By Kristen Schorsch, WBEZ Chicago When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Wisconsin banned nearly all abortions. To preserve access, now more than a dozen providers are traveling across the border into Illinois to treat patients. This partnership between Planned Parenthood organizations could be a model as dozens of abortion clinics close across the U.S.

Shelter Sickness: Migrants See Health Problems Linger and Worsen While Waiting at the Border
By Renuka Rayasam U.S. immigration policies, an increasing number of migrants, and the covid-19 pandemic have led to the growth of the Mexican shelter system, in which people are getting sick and medical care is limited.

‘Still a Lot of Pain’: Four Years After Mass Shooting, Texas Community Grapples With Fallout
By Renuka Rayasam Santa Fe, Texas, was a mental health care desert until a 17-year-old gunman killed 10 people at the local high school in 2018. Now the city, which sits in a rural stretch between Houston and Galveston, has a resiliency center, where anyone affected by the shooting can get free counseling. But even with an influx of mental health care, the community struggles with the aftermath.

Readers and Tweeters Place Value on Community Services and Life-Sustaining Care
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.