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The physical hazards of construction work have long been a focus of safety professionals. Yet attention on the psychosocial hazards is relatively new, with suicide and substance use soaring among male construction workers. Mitigating those risks requires more than hard hats, safety vests, and protective goggles.
The number of new and returning enrollees using healthcare.gov — the federal marketplace that serves 31 states — is well below last year’s as of early December. Also, a Biden administration push to give “Dreamers” access to Obamacare coverage and subsidies is facing court challenges.
A federal judge sided with 19 states seeking an injunction against a Biden administration rule allowing recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to enroll in Affordable Care Act coverage and qualify for subsidies amid the annual open enrollment period.
An Alabama teen was told he needed surgery for debilitating hip pain. But his family’s insurer denied coverage for the procedure, which lacked a medical billing code. Expected to pay more than $7,000, his father charged it to credit cards.
A decades-old manufacturing company opened a clinic and made primary care and prescriptions free for employees and their families.
UC-San Francisco is pausing its long-running master’s program in nurse-midwifery and plans to shift to a lengthier, costlier doctoral program. Midwives criticized the move and questioned the university’s motivations at a time of serious shortages of maternal care workers.
The end of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage protections coincided with changes in more than a dozen states to expand coverage for lower-income people, including children, pregnant women, and the incarcerated.
Ten states have not expanded Medicaid, leaving 1.5 million people ineligible for the state and federal insurance program and also unable to afford private insurance. Seven of those states are in the South, where expansion efforts may have momentum but where lawmakers say political polarization is holding them back.
911 outages have hit at least eight states this year. They’re emblematic of problems plaguing emergency response communications due in part to wide disparities in capabilities and funding.
A single Central Florida county reported 13% of all U.S. leprosy cases in 2020. Researchers have teamed up to investigate whether armadillos are passing the bacteria that cause the disease to humans — which is especially concerning as the animals expand their range farther north.
Hundreds of Native American tribes are getting money from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription painkillers. Some are investing it in sweat lodges, statistical models, and insurance-billing staffers.
Florida has served as a haven for Southern pregnant women with little or no access to abortions. But the Florida Supreme Court upheld a six-week abortion restriction that begins in May — so now women across much of the South seeking abortions will have to look farther afield.
Republicans are learning the admonition “be careful what you wish for,” as conservative judges cause them political problems over abortion in a crucial election year.
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
People in their prime working years living in rural America are 43% more likely to die of natural causes, like diseases, than their urban counterparts, a disparity that grew rapidly in recent decades, according to a new federal report.
Starting this year, federal employees can choose plans that cover a broad menu of fertility services, including up to $25,000 annually for in vitro fertilization procedures. At the same time, politics around IVF and reproductive health have become a central issue in the current election-year debate.
The Supreme Court this week heard its first abortion case since overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, about an appeals court ruling that would dramatically restrict the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. But while it seems likely that this case could be dismissed on a technicality, abortion opponents have more challenges in the pipeline. Meanwhile, health issues are heating up on the campaign trail, as Republicans continue to take aim at Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act — all things Democrats are delighted to defend. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Tony Leys, who wrote a KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about Medicare and a very expensive air-ambulance ride. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
A California law that takes effect this summer will grant minors on public insurance the ability to get mental health treatment without their parents’ consent, a privilege that their peers with private insurance have had for years. But the law has become a flashpoint in the state’s culture wars.
Demand for help monitoring patients’ vital signs remotely has taken off since a Medicare change in 2019. Dozens of companies now push the service to help overburdened primary care doctors — and as a revenue stream. But some policy experts say its growth has outpaced oversight and evidence of effectiveness.
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