Even Political Rivals Agree That Medical Debt Is an Urgent Issue
In red and blue states, state lawmakers from both parties are expanding protections for patients burdened by medical debt.
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In red and blue states, state lawmakers from both parties are expanding protections for patients burdened by medical debt.
Adults with disabilities and their caregivers are pressing governments and private businesses across the U.S. to help them avoid undignified public bathroom experiences.
The vice presidential debate showcased the very different views of Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ VP pick, on health policies past and present.
Minnesota led the way on insulin affordability, culminating in 2020 when Gov. Tim Walz signed a law going further to cut costs than other state laws. Now, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are vying for support from people with diabetes.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has a plan to protect farmworkers from extreme heat and wildfire smoke, but farmworkers who pick California grapes say they need more, as climate change brings more extreme weather.
In many places, victims of the opioid epidemic are silenced in decision-making about how to use opioid settlement money, a first-of-its-kind survey conducted by KFF Health News and Spotlight PA found.
As Democrats convene in Chicago to make official their presidential and vice presidential nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz together are raising the prominence of health care as a 2024 election issue.
Proposed legislation would require the state attorney general’s consent for a wide range of private equity acquisitions in health care. The hospital lobby negotiated an exemption for for-profit hospitals.
Congress and state legislatures are considering age bans and other limits for Instagram and TikTok out of concern that they harm kids’ mental health. But some researchers and pediatricians question whether there’s enough data to support that conclusion.
Colorado defended its high disenrollment rates following the covid crisis by saying that what goes up must come down. Advocates and researchers disagree.
Provider groups are disappointed that the Federal Trade Commission’s new rule may not protect those who work for nonprofit hospitals and health care facilities, which employ the largest number of medical professionals.
The U.S. is one of nine countries that do not guarantee paid sick leave. Since the covid pandemic, advocates in states including Missouri, Alaska, and Nebraska are organizing to take the issue to voters with ballot initiatives this November.
Medical providers say they're still coping with the Change Healthcare cyberattack disclosed in February even though parent company UnitedHealth Group reported that much is back to normal and its revenue is up over last year.
Nurses are telling lawmakers that there are not enough of them working in hospitals and that it risks patients’ lives. California and Oregon legally limit the number of patients under a nurse’s care. Other states trying to do the same were blocked by the hospital industry. Now patients’ relatives are joining the fight.
After rejecting proposed rules to protect millions of workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other hot workplaces, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has offered a compromise to allow the protections to take effect this summer. But state and local correctional workers — and prisoners — would have to wait even longer.
Proposed rules to protect millions of workers from potentially dangerous heat inside workplaces are dead after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration refused to sign off. Labor advocates and state regulators are calling for emergency regulations before temperatures soar this summer.
After California passed the first law in the nation to limit the disavowed term “excited delirium,” bills in other states are being introduced to help end use of the diagnosis. But momentum is being met with resistance from law enforcement and first responder groups, who cite free speech.
A 25-year-old state Supreme Court ruling protects abortion rights in conservative Montana. That hasn’t stopped Republicans and anti-abortion advocates from trying to institute a ban.
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
The designers of the Affordable Care Act might have assumed that they spelled out with sufficient clarity that millions of Americans would no longer have to pay for certain types of preventive care. But they didn’t reckon with America’s ever-creative medical billing juggernaut.
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