KHN Weekly Edition: June 10, 2022

Trauma Surgeons Detail the Horror of Mass Shootings in the Wake of Uvalde and Call for Reforms
By Andy Miller and Lauren Sausser Trauma surgeons say that the weapons used in mass shootings are not new but that more of these especially deadly guns are on the street, causing injuries that are difficult to survive.

AARP’s Billion-Dollar Bounty
By Fred Schulte With its latest venture into primary care clinics, is America’s leading organization for seniors selling its trusted seal of approval?

Medicaid Weighs Attaching Strings to Nursing Home Payments to Improve Patient Care
By Susan Jaffe The Biden administration is considering whether Medicaid, which pays the bills for 62% of nursing home residents, should require that most of that funding be used to provide care, rather than for maintenance, capital improvements, or profits.

Misinformation Clouds America’s Most Popular Emergency Contraception
By Sarah Varney At a moment when half of U.S. states stand poised to outlaw or sharply curtail abortion services, the nation’s most popular emergency contraception brand rests in the unlikely stewardship of two private equity firms.

Addressing the ‘Trust Factor’: South Carolina Researchers Tackle Health Disparities Using Genetics
By Lauren Sausser A new genetic research project underway in South Carolina aims to reduce health disparities between Black and white residents — such as cancer and cardiovascular disease rates — that have long ranked among the nation’s worst. But researchers face the challenge of recruiting 100,000 participants who reflect the diversity of South Carolina. And history isn’t on their side.

Listen: California Positions Itself as an Abortion Sanctuary State
By April Dembosky California lawmakers are considering 13 bills designed to expand access to abortion and welcome women from states where abortion is being banned or restricted.

They Thought They Were Buying Obamacare Plans. What They Got Wasn’t Insurance.
By Bram Sable-Smith Some consumers who think they are signing up for Obamacare insurance find out later they actually purchased a membership to a health care sharing ministry. But regulators and online advertising sites don’t do much about it.

Lawmaker Takes on Insurance Companies and Gets Personal About His Health
By Samantha Young State Sen. Scott Wiener opens up about a weeklong stint in the hospital last year and what it’s like to live with Crohn’s disease. The San Francisco Democrat is pushing a bill that would require insurance companies to cover certain medications while patients appeal denials.

A Deep Dive Into the Widening Mortality Gap Across the Political Aisle
By Colleen DeGuzman Research out this week examines how an area’s political environment can affect its mortality rate.

Long Wait for Justice: People in Jail Face Delays for Mental Health Care Before They Can Stand Trial
By Andy Miller and Rebecca Grapevine People in jail who have serious mental illness and cannot stand trial because of their condition are waiting months, or even more than a year, to get into their state psychiatric hospitals.

Patients Seek Mental Health Care From Their Doctor but Find Health Plans Standing in the Way
By Aneri Pattani Despite a consensus that patients should be able to get mental health care from primary care doctors, insurance policies and financial incentives may not support that.

Children’s Vision Problems Often Go Undetected, Despite Calls for Regular Screening
By Colleen DeGuzman Eye exams for children are required under federal law to be covered by most private health plans and Medicaid, and many states mandate school vision screenings. But a federal survey finds that a quarter of children and teens are still not getting the recommended tests.

Immigration Bureaucracy Threatens 11-Year-Old’s Spot on Transplant Lists
By Michael McAuliff Julia Espinosa is a U.S. citizen who needs high-tech care and three transplants. But if the federal government won’t let her father work here, she could lose her insurance.

She’s 31, Has Stage 4 Kidney Cancer — And Talked Openly About It in a Job Interview
By Bruce Horovitz Katie Coleman’s friends warned her not to tell prospective employers about her cancer diagnosis, fearing it would jeopardize her chances of being hired — even though it’s illegal for employers to discriminate because of a medical condition.

California Wants to Slash Insulin Prices by Becoming a Drugmaker. Can It Succeed?
By Angela Hart Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed spending $100 million to make insulin affordable to millions of people with diabetes under a new state generic drug label, CalRx. But state officials haven’t said how much the insulin will cost patients or how the state will deal with distribution and other challenges.

Grassroots Groups Lead Way on Closing Colorado’s Infant Mortality Gap
By Rae Ellen Bichell Colorado is among about 15 states that have met federal goals to reduce infant mortality, an important indicator of overall population health. Breaking down the data by race and ethnicity, though, makes clear that major gaps remain.

Some People in This Montana Mining Town Worry About the Dust Next Door
By Katheryn Houghton Residents of a Butte neighborhood are concerned about the dust from a nearby open-pit mine that can coat their homes and vehicles. In a city where past mining left a legacy of soil and water pollution, is the air unsafe, too?

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Taking a Shot at Gun Control
The U.S. House passed a package of bills seeking to keep some guns out of the hands of children and teenagers, but its fate in the Senate remains a big question mark. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission takes on drug and hospital prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, 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 this week, Rovner interviews Cori Uccello of the American Academy of Actuaries about the most recent report from Medicare’s trustees board.

‘An Arm and a Leg’: Good News for Your Credit Report
By Dan Weissmann In July, credit reporting bureaus will start taking paid medical debt off people's credit reports. Here's what you need to know.