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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.
Local governments have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the opioid settlements to support addiction treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts. Their spending decisions in 2024 were sometimes surprising and even controversial. Our new database offers more than 10,500 examples.
Federal health authorities have taken the "unprecedented" step of instructing states to investigate certain individuals on Medicaid to determine whether they are ineligible because of their immigration status, with five states reporting they’ve received more than 170,000 names collectively.
California now has a law requiring hospitals and clinics to improve patient privacy and have clear protocols for handling requests by immigration agents. Legal experts say the state can’t fully protect immigrant patients, because federal authorities are allowed in public places, including hospital lobbies, general waiting areas, and parking lots.
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.
A doctor in Colorado became the patient after an accident totaled her car and sent her to the operating room. The hospital kept her overnight, but her insurer stopped paying after she left the emergency room.
Reversing guidance from the Biden administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concludes that states cannot bar medical debt from their residents’ credit reports.
Even if Congress strikes a deal soon to extend more generous Affordable Care Act subsidies, the prices and types of ACA plans available could change dramatically. Unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval could cloud this year’s open enrollment season, which begins in most states on Saturday.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national or local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The Trump administration says it’s developing a digital tool to help people prove they’re meeting new Medicaid work requirements. KFF Health News talked to officials from the two states running pilot programs and found little evidence of new — or effective — technology.
States are battling for their piece of $50 billion in federal rural health funding, but it’s not just hospitals vying for the money. Tech startups and policy demands are raising the stakes as Medicaid cuts loom.
As contractors position themselves to cash in on a gush of new business managing Medicaid work requirements, a cadre of senators has launched an inquiry into the companies paid billions to build eligibility systems.
President Donald Trump called the Digital Equity Act unconstitutional, racist, and illegal. Then the $2.75 billion program for rural and underserved communities to gain internet access disappeared.
Amid concerns that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is undermining trust in vaccines and public health science, some states are seeking new sources of scientific consensus and changing how they regulate insurance companies, prescribers, and pharmacists. Colorado has been at the front of this wave.
People who maintained the nation’s land-based nuclear missile arsenal are coming down with similar cancers. The Air Force is wrapping up a large study of the health risks they may have faced.
Health care providers and debt collectors are biting from people’s paychecks to cover old medical bills. A KFF Health News investigation in Colorado shows that this aggressive collection practice is widespread even in a state considered to have strong consumer protections.
Some injured patients say they wish they had tried harder to check the backgrounds of doctors and clinics they trusted, but those records are hard to find.
States are taking aim at chemicals and additives in foods as Republicans and Democrats alike embrace at least one aspect of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” push. It’s a shift for Republicans, who had vilified past Democratic efforts to impose government will on what people eat and drink.
Even if people qualify for financial help with their hospital bills, the care they receive may not be covered.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
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