Possibility of Wildlife-to-Human Crossover Heightens Concern About Chronic Wasting Disease
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
Colorado Legal Settlement Would Up Care and Housing Standards for Trans Women Inmates
A soon-to-be-finalized legal settlement would offer transgender women in Colorado prisons new housing options, including a pipeline to the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. The change comes amid a growing number of lawsuits across the country aimed at improving health care access and safety for incarcerated trans people.
Where Are the Nation’s Primary Care Providers? It’s Not an Easy Answer
Politicians keep talking about fixing primary care shortages. But flawed national data leaves big holes in how to evaluate which policies are effective.
As climate change-driven wildfires increasingly choke large parts of the United States with smoke each summer, new research shows residents in long-term care facilities are being exposed to dangerously poor air, even those who don’t set foot outside during smoke events.
Rural Hospitals Are Caught in an Aging-Infrastructure Conundrum
Small, community hospitals face challenges in paying for the capital improvement projects they need to stay open.
Rising Malpractice Premiums Price Small Clinics Out of Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
Even in states where laws protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care, malpractice insurance premiums are keeping small and independent clinics from treating patients.
States Begin Tapping Medicaid Dollars to Combat Gun Violence
The Biden administration is allowing states to use money from the insurance program for low-income and disabled residents to pay for gun violence prevention. California and six other states have approved such spending, with more expected to follow.
Can Family Doctors Deliver Rural America From Its Maternal Health Crisis?
Family medicine doctors already deliver most of rural America’s babies, and efforts to train more in obstetrics care are seen as a way to cope with labor and delivery unit closures.
States Expand Health Coverage for Immigrants as GOP Hits Biden Over Border Crossings
More than 1 million immigrants, most lacking permanent legal status, are covered by state health programs. Several states, including GOP-led Utah, will soon add or expand such coverage.
La mayoría de los adultos sin papeles trabajan, representan aproximadamente el 5% de la fuerza laboral nacional, según el Pew Research Center.
Millions in Opioid Settlement Funds Sit Untouched as Overdose Deaths Rise
Some states haven’t begun using opioid settlement funds intended to help curb the opioid epidemic. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 Americans died of an overdose last year.
As Foundation for ‘Excited Delirium’ Diagnosis Cracks, Fallout Spreads
Major policy changes and disavowals have made this a watershed year for curbing the use of the discredited “excited delirium” diagnosis to explain deaths in police custody. Now the ripple effects are spreading across the country into court cases, state legislation, and police training classes.
Colorado Blames Biden Team and Drugmakers for Delaying Canadian Imports
Colorado officials say they haven’t been able to stand up a program to import drugs from Canada because of drugmaker opposition — and the Biden administration’s inaction.
These Programs Put Unused Prescription Drugs in the Hands of Patients in Need
States and counties look to expand programs that accept donations of unused surplus drugs from places like nursing homes and hospitals and redistribute them to low-income and uninsured residents.
Why It’s So Tough to Reduce Unnecessary Medical Care
Treatments that don’t help patients, and may even harm them, are difficult to eliminate because they can be big sources of revenue.
Ohio Voted on Abortion. Next Year, 11 More States Might, Too.
Ohio is the latest state where voters have directly weighed in on abortion, and the next wave of such ballot measures is in the works in at least 11 other states, including Missouri.
Storing Guns Away From Home Could Reduce Suicides, but Legal Hurdles Loom
Safe storage maps show gun owners where to put their firearms for safekeeping if they experience a mental health crisis. The idea has support among some gun enthusiasts, but legal obstacles threaten wider adoption.
Feds Try to Head Off Growing Problem of Overdoses Among Expectant Mothers
Homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses have driven rising rates of pregnancy-related death in the U.S. This fall, six states received federal funding for substance use treatment interventions to prevent at least some of those deaths.
Covid Relief Payments Triggered Feds to Demand Money Back From Social Security Recipients
Some Social Security beneficiaries say the government is clawing back benefits after they received covid stimulus payments that were supposed to be exempt from asset limits.
Doctors Abandon a Diagnosis Used to Justify Police Custody Deaths. It Might Live On, Anyway.
The American College of Emergency Physicians agreed to withdraw its 2009 white paper on excited delirium, removing the only official medical pillar of support left for the theory that has played a key role in absolving police of culpability for in-custody deaths.
