How North Carolina Made Its Hospitals Do Something About Medical Debt
State officials threatened to withhold public money from hospitals, pioneering a strategy that could become a national model.
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She Was Accused of Murder After Losing Her Pregnancy. SC Woman Now Tells Her Story.
Amari Marsh, now 23, was a student at South Carolina State University when she lost her pregnancy in 2023. She was charged with murder and faced at least 20 years in prison. A grand jury cleared her in August. Now she’s sharing her story.
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Across North Carolina, Medical Debt Exacts a Heavy Toll
The state has among the highest levels of medical debt in the country, data shows.
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Journalists Give Insights Into Opioid Settlements and Picking a Nursing Home
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff took to the airwaves recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
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Fighting Staff Shortages With Scholarships, California Bill Aims To Boost Mental Health Courts
A new bill would create a scholarship program for students who agree to work with specialized courts in California to get patients into treatment, but some people argue the state shouldn’t restrict scholarship aid to a new, untested program given broader behavioral health workforce shortages.
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Rural NC County Is Set To Reopen Its Shuttered Hospital With Help From a New Federal Program
One rural North Carolina county is on track to be among the first where a hospital reopens owing to a new federal hospital classification meant to help save small, struggling facilities.
By Taylor Sisk American Health Under Trump — Past, Present, and Future
Episode 364Dreaming of a Trump victory, Republicans have a wish list of health policy changes — including loosening Affordable Care Act regulations to make cheaper coverage available and ending Medicare drug price negotiations. Meanwhile, after a publicly reported death stemming from a state abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris is emphasizing the consequences of Trump’s work to overturn Roe v. Wade. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University join KFF Health News senior editor Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these stories and more.
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Abortion Clinics — And Patients — Are on the Move, as State Laws Keep Shifting
Clinics in states where most abortions are legal, such as Kansas and Illinois, are reporting an influx of inquiries from patients hundreds of miles away — and are expanding in response. Despite the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal protections in 2022, abortions are now at their highest numbers in a decade.
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California Medicaid Ballot Measure Is Popular, Well Funded — And Perilous, Opponents Warn
Proposition 35, which would use revenue from a tax on managed-care plans to raise the pay of health care providers who serve Medi-Cal patients, has united a broad swath of California’s health care, business, and political establishments. But a newly formed, smaller group of opponents says it will do more harm than good.
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These Alabama Workers Were Swamped by Medical Debt. Then Their Employer Stepped In.
A decades-old manufacturing company opened a clinic and made primary care and prescriptions free for employees and their families.
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Cyberattacks Plague the Health Industry. Critics Call Feds’ Response Feeble and Fractured.
Health care weathered more ransomware attacks last year than any other sector, and that was before a debilitating February hack of payments manager Change Healthcare. Executives, lawyers, and policymakers are worried the federal government’s response is underpowered, underfunded, and too focused on hospital security.
By Darius Tahir -
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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.
By Brett Kelman -
Arkansas’ Governor Says Medicaid Extension for New Moms Isn’t Needed
Federal law requires states to provide pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage through 60 days after delivery. Arkansas has not expanded what’s called postpartum Medicaid coverage, an option that gives poor women uninterrupted health insurance for a year after they give birth.
By Sarah Varney -
California May Regulate and Restrict Pharmaceutical Brokers
California lawmakers are moving to rein in the pharmaceutical middlemen they say drive up costs and limit consumers’ choices. The bill sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom would require pharmacy benefit managers to be licensed in California and would ban some business practices. Newsom vetoed a previous effort three years ago.
By Don Thompson -
Historic Numbers of Americans Live by Themselves as They Age
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.
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Watch: New Documentary Film Explores a Lynching and a Police Killing 78 Years Apart
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.
By Cara Anthony Hush, Fix Your Face
Episode 2In 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.
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