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Federal officials reversed their stance on medical debt credit reporting, then came a lawsuit in Colorado. As lawmakers in other states forge ahead with attempts to protect consumers from medical debt, some are reconsidering how they go about it.
The federal budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law in July is creating uncertainty for states trying to rein in health care spending. In California, a lawsuit by the hospital industry challenging state spending caps cites the law, which will slash Medicaid spending, as one of many financial pressures.
Regulations meant to prevent unfettered health care expansion are withholding needed hospital beds in a rural part of North Carolina. Here, as in communities around the country, some officials and health care providers are contesting such “certificate of need” laws.
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Proposals from states that have shared their applications to a new $50 billion rural health program include using drones to deliver medication, installing refrigerators to expand access to healthy produce, and bringing telehealth to libraries, day cares, and senior centers.
The Trump administration has taken another step to weaken protections for Americans with medical debt, issuing rules that undercut state efforts to keep these debts off consumers’ credit reports.
The HHS office that administers the Title X family planning program has been effectively shut down. And with cuts to federal funding for other family health programs, expected Medicaid cuts, and the potential lapse of ACA subsidies, health leaders fear they are seeing the biggest setback to U.S. reproductive care in half a century.
Under the budget law that Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, food assistance for refugees will be sliced. The change is sowing fear, uncertainty, and a struggle for survival — a sign of what’s to come for millions of Americans.
Patients sometimes find themselves scrambling for affordable care when a contract dispute causes a hospital — and most of the doctors and other clinicians who work there — to be dropped from an insurance network. Here are six things to know if that happens to you.
Health care professionals fear that new caps on federal student lending, set to start in July, will put medical school out of reach for many who want to become doctors and exacerbate physician shortages. Others say unlimited federal lending has fed a rise in academic costs, saddling families and, ultimately, taxpayers with debt.
Some advocates and lawmakers want to impose national regulations on the gambling industry but would settle for reining in excessive betting at the state level.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have expanded access to hormone therapy, a top priority for the trans community. Advocates say it would have ensured continuity in gender-affirming care amid Trump administration attacks. Analysts say it’s another sign of the Democrat’s move to the center.
Community health centers are key to delivering care in underserved communities around the country, but their services could be disrupted or scaled back after governments did not renew their funding.
The health care sector has accounted for nearly half of this year’s U.S. job growth. But economists say immigration crackdowns and Medicaid cuts could create a drag on the sector just as more workers are needed to support a growing population of older Americans.
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.
GOP lawmakers in 10 states have refused for a decade to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. But when President Donald Trump got another whack at Obamacare, these holdout states went unrewarded.
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 GOP’s tax and spending law and a new rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will make it harder to enroll in Affordable Care Act health plans, will raise consumers’ out-of-pocket costs, and could prompt younger, healthier people, including lawfully present immigrants who will lose financial aid, to drop coverage.
The anti-abortion movement is rallying around new laws that establish fetal “personhood.” Doctors are scrambling to adjust, but even conservatives don’t always agree on how such laws should be applied.
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