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Over the past 70 years, the number of inpatient psychiatric beds has dropped dramatically, leaving many without critical care when they experience mental health crises. I was one of the lucky ones to get a bed — after 21 hours of waiting.
Gov. Gavin Newsom launched an ambitious initiative to make public schools the epicenter of mental health services for young people. Five years after he promised transformation, many schools have struggled to get the program up and running, and hundreds more have yet to try.
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The state’s campaign to end school vaccine requirements is dead for now. The reasons could offer insights into similar efforts’ chances in other states.
Some Senate Democrats want to cap the amount beneficiaries in traditional Medicare have to pay toward care, but the move is expected to draw GOP opposition for potentially adding billions to Medicare costs.
One of California’s largest healthcare unions is sponsoring two initiatives that would regulate community clinics and cap executive and managerial pay at hospitals and physician groups. In the most recent eruption of a long-standing feud, the measures have drawn fierce opposition from a wide swath of the medical industry.
Big cuts to healthcare programs in the 2025 GOP budget law are creating an affordability crunch for many Americans: Higher health insurance premiums. Confusion about who Medicaid will cover under the new rules. KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner explains how the changes could leave nearly 2 million children uninsured.
A year after the measure’s passage, a state law is keeping immigrants and their children from accessing Medicaid even when they qualify.
A Minnesota Star Tribune-KFF Health News investigation found charity care at hospitals in the state is offered at low and arbitrary levels, prompting Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to say, “There is more work in front of us.”
Some states bar professional midwives from attending home births if they don’t have a nursing license. Their advocates say laws to allow midwife licensing would make home birth safer and more accessible, plus help address a maternity care shortage.
Several states have required their health agencies to take on another job: verifying immigration status among Medicaid recipients and reporting them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. North Carolina is the latest to pass such a law, and experts expect more to follow.
On May 1, the state will become the first to require people on the government health program to fulfill a work requirement or lose their coverage under a new rule that was a key part of congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Work requirements will encourage people who are able to work to seek and maintain jobs, proponents say. But researchers haven’t found that they lower the unemployment rate.
Moving through the California Senate are two bills, informed by KFF Health News reporting, that would strengthen protections for patients brought to health facilities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As President Donald Trump’s heightened immigration enforcement continues across the country, some states are updating temporary guardianship laws to keep the children of detained and deported immigrants out of state custody.
Post-mastectomy pain syndrome, or PMPS, is estimated to afflict tens of thousands of U.S. women each year. And yet it is not well understood and is inconsistently treated.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Some people find they owe money back for subsidies if their income changed from what they estimated. In 2026, more people may find themselves in this situation — and face higher repayment amounts — if they don’t carefully track their income.
After Eric Tennant died, his widow vowed to speak out against West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency, which had denied cancer treatment recommended by Tennant’s doctor. Her efforts paid off. In March, West Virginia’s governor signed a bill to protect some patients from harm tied to prior authorization.
Some states have tried to crack down on crisis pregnancy centers, accusing them of deceptive practices. But now conservative lawmakers are pushing legislation to increase protections for the organizations, which work to dissuade women from abortions.
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