Tennessee Tries To Rein In Ballad’s Hospital Monopoly After Years of Problems
Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system with the nation's largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, serves patients in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
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Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system with the nation's largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, serves patients in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina.
Longer life spans, rising rates of divorce, widowhood, and childlessness, and smaller, far-flung families are fueling a “gray revolution” in older adults’ living arrangements. It can have profound health consequences.
In Episode 2 of the “Silence in Sikeston” podcast, host Cara Anthony speaks with Sikeston, Missouri, resident Larry McClellon, who grew up being told not to talk about the 1942 lynching of Cleo Wright. He is determined to break the cycle of silence in his community. Anthony also unearths a secret in her own family and grapples with the possible effects of intergenerational trauma.
The “Silence in Sikeston” documentary film explores how the nation’s first federally investigated lynching and a police killing 78 years apart haunt the same rural Missouri community. The film from KFF Health News and Retro Report explores the lasting impact of such trauma — and what it means to speak out about it.
As California cities crack down on homeless encampments in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling authorizing fines and arrests, front-line workers say such sweeps are undercutting billions in state and federal Medicaid spending meant to stabilize people’s health and get them off the streets.
Despite years of national strategies to address the suicide crisis in the U.S., rates continue to rise. A chorus of researchers and experts say the interventions will work — but that they’re simply not being adopted by state and local governments.
KFF Health News and California Healthline journalists made the rounds on local and state media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Every family has secrets. I spent the past few years reporting about racial violence in Sikeston, Missouri. Interviewing Black families there helped me uncover my family's traumatic past, too.
The recent shooting at Apalachee High School outside of Atlanta caused more than physical wounds. Medical experts worry a lack of mental health resources in the community — and in Georgia as a whole — means few options for those trying to cope with trauma from the shooting.
Georgia must decide soon whether to try to extend a limited Medicaid expansion that requires participants to work. Enrollment fell far short of goals in the first year, and the state isn’t yet able to verify participants are working.
State and local governments are struggling to keep up with the increasing burden of heat-related illness as summers get hotter because of climate change. In Missoula County, Montana, officials are working with researchers to understand trends in heat-related 911 calls.
Many Catholic health systems, which are tax-exempt, pay their executives millions and can charge some of the highest prices around — while critics say they scrimp on commitments to their communities.
The generally combative face-off was marked by a series of false and sometimes bizarre statements from former President Donald Trump.
Officials reason that vigilance and familiarity with campuses would speed responses to shootings. But there is scant research about armed police in schools — and some studies suggest that racial bias in policing offers cause for caution.
John Baackes, who steered Medi-Cal’s largest health plan following the Affordable Care Act expansion, and later prepared it for a state overhaul of Medi-Cal, will retire after this year. Baackes believes low payments to doctors and other providers, along with an acute labor shortage, hamper Medi-Cal’s success.
About 8% of Americans lacked health insurance in 2023, the Census Bureau announced. But its report doesn’t capture the effect of states winnowing their Medicaid rolls by millions of people since the pandemic emergency ended.
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