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More than 1 million immigrants, most lacking permanent legal status, are covered by state health programs. Several states, including GOP-led Utah, will soon add or expand such coverage.
California’s Medicaid program is undergoing major changes that could improve health care for residents with low incomes. But they are happening at the same time as several other initiatives that could compete for staff attention and confuse enrollees.
In the new year, California’s Medicaid program will open to otherwise eligible immigrants ages 26 to 49 without legal residency. They will join children, young adults, and adults over 50 enrolled in Medi-Cal through previous expansions to residents lacking authorization. The change is expected to add over 700,000 first-time enrollees.
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will square off in a first-of-its-kind debate on Nov. 30. KFF Health News compared the political rivals’ health care positions, showing how their policies have helped — or hindered — the health of their states’ residents.
Though never framed as a marquee issue, the topic of health care crept into the chaotic seven-way faceoff throughout the evening, highlighting Republican culture-war themes.
Florida’s new immigration law requires hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status at admission and in emergency rooms, and report that information plus the cost of care for residents without legal status. Doctors and nurses who oppose the policy seem reluctant to criticize lawmakers for fear of political retribution.
As the number of refugees entering the U.S. grows, those arriving in Montana and other rural areas find limited dental care options.
The Supreme Court is considering the future of the abortion pill mifepristone, after GenBioPro sued the FDA over limitations that effectively block generic production of the drug, a major part of the market. Congress is considering proposals that would impose Medicaid work requirements, crack down on pharmacy benefit managers, and more. And President Joe Biden moved to expand health coverage to young immigrants known as “Dreamers.” Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KFF Health News’ Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these issues and more.
Nearly half a million Californians without legal residency make too much to qualify for Medicaid yet they can’t afford to buy coverage. A state lawmaker is proposing to open up the state’s health insurance exchange as a first step to providing them affordable insurance.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is winding down state assistance for health care services to migrants seeking asylum. He’s lobbying the Biden administration to increase aid along the state’s southern border.
Responding to covid has taken so much attention and energy that some public health workers believe it pushed tuberculosis off people’s radar.
Local health departments combat disparities by funding immigrant and minority community groups and letting them decide how best to spend the money.
The industry has long relied on immigrants to bolster its ranks, and they’ll be critical to meeting future staffing needs, experts say. But as the baby boom generation fills beds, policymakers are slow to open new pathways for foreign workers.
Covid remains a threat for the roughly 30,000 people in the country’s network of immigration facilities. But ICE continues to flout its own pandemic protocols, an extension of the facilities’ poor history of medical care.
Refugees are arriving in the U.S. in greater numbers after a 40-year low, prompting some health professionals to rethink ways to provide culturally competent care amid a shortage of mental health services.
Los Angeles taps Marta Segura, director of the city’s climate emergency mobilization office, as its first heat officer. Segura, the first Hispanic person to hold such a position in the country, will work across city departments on an early warning system while developing cooling strategies.
Hispanic residents have long been among the least likely to have health insurance — in Colorado and across the country — in part because of unauthorized immigrants. The state is expanding coverage to some of them, although the change runs up against lingering fears about the use of public benefits.
Julia Espinosa is a U.S. citizen who needs high-tech care and three transplants. But if the federal government won’t let her father work here, she could lose her insurance.
Thousands of ICE detainees nationwide have tested positive for covid; 11 have died. Medical providers in California are volunteering to educate immigrants awaiting trial or deportation about covid treatment and vaccination.
Stressed vaccine communicators battle anti-vaccine propaganda while seeking to persuade Latino farmworkers to get covid boosters.
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