Montana, an Island of Abortion Access, Preps for Consequential Elections and Court Decisions
A 25-year-old state Supreme Court ruling protects abortion rights in conservative Montana. That hasn’t stopped Republicans and anti-abortion advocates from trying to institute a ban.
GOP-Led States Expand Crackdowns on Transgender Care
South Carolina’s legislature is poised to pass a bill prohibiting doctors from offering some health-care services to transgender minors — part of a new wave of anti-trans legislation from Republican-led states. The South Carolina bill, which passed the state House of Representatives in January and is under consideration in the Senate, would bar health-care providers […]
Concerns Grow Over Quality of Care as Investor Groups Buy Not-for-Profit Nursing Homes
For-profit groups own more than 70% of U.S. nursing homes. Industry leaders and researchers wonder whether corporations and investors can succeed where not-for-profit organizations have struggled. Or, will quality of care suffer in the name of making money?
Colorado Isn’t Giving up on Its Drug Importation Dream
Colorado hopes to join Florida to become only the second state authorized to import prescription drugs from Canada. But they’re hitting the same hurdles: drugmakers — and the FDA. Colorado officials recently amended their 2022 importation application with the Food and Drug Administration, in the process revealing new correspondence that shows the state’s so-far fruitless […]
America Worries About Health Costs — And Voters Want to Hear From Biden and Republicans
The presidential election is likely to turn on the simple question of whether Americans want Donald Trump back in the White House. But health care tops the list of household financial worries for adults from both parties.
How a Friend’s Death Turned Colorado Teens Into Anti-Overdose Activists
High school students in Colorado are pushing for a change they say is necessary to combat fentanyl poisoning: ensuring students can’t get in trouble for carrying the overdose reversal drug naloxone wherever they go, including at school.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Alabama’s IVF Ruling Still Making Waves
Lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures are scrambling to react to the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization are legally children. Abortion opponents are divided among themselves, with some supporting full “personhood” for fertilized eggs, while others support IVF as a moral way to have children. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Riley Griffin of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University schools of nursing and public health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews University of Pittsburgh law professor Greer Donley, who explains how a 150-year-old anti-vice law that’s still on the books could be used to ban abortion nationwide. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
Bathroom Bills Are Back — Broader and Stricter — In Several States
State lawmakers are resurrecting and expanding efforts to prohibit transgender people from using public restrooms and other spaces that match their gender. Some have sought to ban trans people from “sex-designated spaces,” including domestic violence shelters and crisis centers, which experts say could violate anti-discrimination laws and jeopardize federal funding.
Toxic Gas That Sterilizes Medical Devices Prompts Safety Rule Update
The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening regulation of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic gas used to sterilize medical devices. The agency is trying to balance the interests of the health care industry supply chain with those of communities where the gas creates airborne health risks.
Health Care Workers Push for Their Own Confidential Mental Health Treatment
Montana may join about a dozen other states in creating “safe havens” that keep health care professionals from facing scrutiny from licensure boards for seeking mental health or addiction treatment.
Death and Redemption in an American Prison
More than a quarter century after an inmate helped start a hospice program in one of the nation’s most notorious prisons, he is trying to spread the idea.
The Powerful Constraints on Medical Care in Catholic Hospitals Across America
The expansion of Catholic hospitals nationwide leaves patients at the mercy of the church’s religious directives, which are often at odds with accepted medical standards.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Biden Wins Early Court Test for Medicare Drug Negotiations
A federal district court judge dismissed a lawsuit attempting to invalidate the Biden administration’s Medicare prescription-drug price negotiation program. But the suit turned on a technicality, and several more court challenges are in the pipeline. Meanwhile, health policy pops up in Super Bowl ads, as Congress approaches yet another funding deadline. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
States Target Health Insurers’ ‘Prior Authorization’ Red Tape
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
GoFundMe Has Become a Health Care Utility
Resorting to crowdfunding to pay medical bills has become so routine, in some cases health professionals recommend it.
Colorado Moves to Connect Agricultural Workers With Mental Health Resources
Advocates say two bills under consideration could help migrant communities but that more needs to be done.
Halfway Through ‘Unwinding,’ Medicaid Enrollment Is Down About 10 Million
While more Medicaid beneficiaries have been purged in the span of a year than ever before, enrollment is on track to settle at pre-pandemic levels.
Is Housing Health Care? State Medicaid Programs Increasingly Say ‘Yes’
States are using their Medicaid programs to offer poor and sick people housing services, such as paying six months’ rent or helping hunt for apartments. The trend comes in response to a growing homelessness epidemic, but experts caution this may not be the best use of limited health care money.
Congressman Off-Base in Ad Claiming Fauci Shipped Covid to Montana Before the Pandemic
Facts don’t support claims by a likely Republican Senate candidate that a federal research laboratory in Montana infected bats with a coronavirus from China before the covid-19 outbreak.
Possibility of Wildlife-to-Human Crossover Heightens Concern About Chronic Wasting Disease
A response is ramping up to a potential spillover of the neurological disease to humans from deer, elk, and other animals.
