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Last year, the Trump administration announced a voluntary pledge by dozens of insurers to improve prior authorization, which often requires patients to seek approval before treatments. But prior authorization remains commonplace, and there's no evidence the government is trying to hold insurers to account.
California’s laws still leave extradition decisions related to reproductive rights and gender-affirming care to its governor. But as states with abortion bans target California physicians who prescribe abortion pills across state lines, Democrats want to lock in protections for doctors, no matter who the next governor is.
A Minnesota Star Tribune-KFF Health News investigation of hospital data and charity care programs shows most Minnesota hospitals provide little financial aid to patients and often make assistance difficult to get.
A rural Nebraska dialysis unit that was hemorrhaging money closed, upending patients’ lives. That’s despite a federal rural health program that granted the state more than $200 million this year to improve health care in rural communities.
Tribal insurance programs give Native Americans access to affordable health care when the Indian Health Service falls short. Those plans are threatened by the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Native American women face higher rates of death than other demographics. In response, Native Americans have been working with state and federal officials to boost tribal participation and leadership in maternal mortality review committees to better track and address pregnancy-related deaths.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on local and regional media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The Trump administration has championed its Rural Health Transformation Program as an investment in American families who have been left behind. But Native American tribes, whose communities have a significant presence in rural America and have some of the greatest health needs, are ineligible to apply directly for funding.
New details from health officials suggest the whooping-cough surge may be part of a national pattern driven by slipping vaccine coverage and waning immunity, with infants bearing the brunt of the consequences.
Amid public forums and local cries for help, states are also talking with large health systems, technology companies, and others amid intensifying competition for shares of a $50 billion fund to improve rural health.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
The Trump administration has pushed a significant amount of health costs to states, whose budgets may already be strained by declining state tax revenues, a slowdown in pandemic spending, and economic uncertainty. State and local governments now face difficult decisions.
As states prepare to implement changes to Medicaid required by President Donald Trump’s recent tax-and-spending law, tribal leaders say they are concerned Native American enrollees could lose their coverage, despite exemptions made by Congress.
More than a dozen states are seeking their own versions of Medicaid work requirements. But the incoming federal standards pose questions around how much leeway states have to design their rules.
The workforce of a federal agency that oversees billions in grants for primary health care, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health services, and workforce training has been slashed, sparking fears of what’s to come.
Native American groups declare that tribal sovereignty trumps state and federal efforts to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for two-spirit and LGBTQ+ tribal citizens. Tribes are analyzing the risk of opposing Trump’s policies, advocates say.
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Native American tribes and health organizations are hosting clinics and calling patients to counteract low measles vaccination rates and limited access to health care as the disease spreads across the country.
Lawmakers added a $50 billion program for rural health to President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending package with promises it would help plug the hole left by Medicaid cuts. Rural hospital and clinic leaders worry the infusion won’t reach the right places.
For-profit hospitals provide most inpatient physical therapy but tend to have worse readmission rates to general hospitals. Medicare doesn’t tell consumers about troubling inspections.
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