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Pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage ends just two months after childbirth in Texas — some advocates and researchers say that cutoff contributes to maternal deaths and illnesses in the state.
As homelessness explodes across California, so does the number of expectant mothers on the streets. Street medicine doctors are getting paid more by Medicaid and offering some of those mothers-to-be a chance to overcome addiction and reverse chronic diseases so they can have healthy babies — and perhaps keep them.
Under the nation’s first law of its kind, teens must have parental consent to travel for medical care, including in cases of sexual assault or rape. Any adult, including an aunt, grandparent, or sibling, convicted of violating the criminal statute faces up to five years in prison — and could be sued for financial damages.
When uninsured people are diagnosed with cancer, accessing resources and paying for treatment can be daunting. The safety nets meant to help often fall short, say cancer physicians and health policy experts who study access to care. Some patients find it easier to play the odds.
Josie sensed Florida lawmakers were threatening her health care and ability to be herself at school. So she left. Families of other trans youth are plotting exits as well.
The Affordable Care Act has not been a major issue in the 2024 campaign, but abortion and reproductive rights have been front and center. Those are just two of the dozens of health issues that could be profoundly affected by who is elected president and which party controls Congress in 2025. In this special live episode, Tamara Keith of NPR, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Cynthia Cox and Ashley Kirzinger of KFF join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss how health policy has affected the campaign and how the election results might affect health policy. Plus, the panel answers questions from the live audience.
A union is asking Los Angeles city voters to cap hospital executive pay at the U.S. president’s salary. However, hospitals accuse the union of using the proposal as political leverage, and policy experts question whether the policy, if enacted, would be workable.
Mississippi has among the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the U.S. When low-income women can't afford regular preventive care, much less gynecological visits, this highly preventable and treatable cancer becomes a killer.
The day-to-day struggles that parents of kids with mental health conditions must navigate have led to their own crisis: The stress can take a physical toll that disrupts parents’ ability to provide care, say psychologists, researchers, and advocates for families.
Who gets credit for wiping smallpox from the planet? American men have been widely recognized while the contributions of South Asian public health workers have been less celebrated. Episode 2 of the “Eradicating Smallpox” podcast tells the story of Mahendra Dutta, an Indian public health leader, whose political savvy helped usher in a transformative approach to finding and containing smallpox cases.
It’s been the summer of broken weather records around the world — for heat, rain, and wildfire smoke — advertising the risks of climate change in a big way. But, apparently, it’s not enough to break the logjam in Washington over how to address the growing climate crisis. Meanwhile, in Texas, women who were unable to get care for pregnancy complications took their stories to court, and Congress gears up to — maybe — do something about prescription drug prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join Julie Rovner, KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Meena Seshamani, the top administrator for the federal Medicare program.
The “Diabetes Belt,” as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comprises 644 mostly Southern counties where diabetes rates are high. Of those counties, KFF Health News and NPR found, more than half also have high levels of medical debt.
A three-judge appeals court panel heard testimony this week about revoking the FDA’s 22-year-old approval of a key pill used in medication abortion and miscarriage management. The judges all have track records of siding with abortion foes. Meanwhile, as the standoff over raising the federal debt ceiling continues in Washington, a major sticking point is whether to impose work requirements on recipients of Medicaid coverage. Victoria Knight of Axios, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
As evidence supporting medication treatment for opioid addiction mounts, judges, district attorneys, and law enforcement officials in rural America are increasingly open to it after years of insisting on abstinence only.
2023 was another busy year in health care. As the covid-19 pandemic waned, policymakers looked anew at long-standing obstacles to obtaining and paying for care in the nation’s health care system. Meanwhile, abortion has continued to be an issue in much of the nation, as states respond to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to the procedure. This week, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and wrap up the year in health. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Jordan Rau about his joint KFF Health News-New York Times series “Dying Broke.”
Colorado’s new Prescription Drug Affordability Board could cap what health plans and consumers pay for certain medications starting next year. The process will pit patient groups against one another.
As much of the U.S. faces extremely high summer temperatures, Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has taken steps that effectively eliminate mandated water breaks for construction workers. In response, protesters from the Lone Star State came to Washington, D.C., to press for federal protections for such outdoor workers.
Pueblo, Colorado, residents have higher-than-average medical debt, while the city’s two tax-exempt hospitals provide relatively low levels of charity care.
The private equity-backed practice has been known to demand more than $100,000 in charges or penalties. One patient is fighting back.
A push is underway to create a National Patient Safety Board modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates plane crashes and other transportation disasters. But unlike the NTSB, some patient safety advocates say, the current proposal is toothless and wouldn’t provide transparency about the nation’s hospitals.
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