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As settlement dollars land at the state level, state councils wield significant power in determining how the windfall gets spent. And, though they will likely include the most knowledgeable voices on addiction, these panels also face concerns about conflicts of interest and other issues.
Montana, Alaska, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming are among the latest states moving to provide health coverage for up to a year after pregnancy through the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people.
Montana officials are looking to tighten rules around medically necessary abortions for those who use Medicaid as their health insurance. Reproductive health advocates and Democratic lawmakers have said the move is part of a broader agenda to whittle away access to the procedure.
Abortion is a top issue for state lawmakers meeting for their first full sessions since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The popularity of at-home covid tests has amplified calls from public health researchers and diagnostic companies to make home testing similarly routine for sexually transmitted diseases. But FDA guidelines are lagging.
A bipartisan U.S. Senate agreement on guns that focuses on mental health raises hopes and doubts in rural Western states with high suicide rates and easy access to guns.
Georgia may soon join a growing list of states decriminalizing the use of fentanyl testing strips. Bans of the strips ā on the books in about half of states, experts say ā stem from laws criminalizing drug paraphernalia adopted decades ago. But the testing devices are now recommended to help prevent overdose deaths.
Federal data shows that vaccination rates for American Indians and Alaska Natives were some of the highest in the nation, but tribes say resistance has slowed efforts to boost members.
Conservative lawmakers may find their anti-abortion agendas complicated by state constitutions that explicitly grant citizens the right to privacy, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers guidance but calls for localities to set quarantine rules for unvaccinated children exposed to someone with covid-19. That's led to a pandemic patchwork of rules.
Hospitals and doctors are facing more demands for ivermectin as a covid-19 treatment, despite a lack of proof it works. In some Republican-dominated states, pushing for ivermectin interventions has become a conservative rallying cry.
As covid case numbers rise nationwide, Georgia and some other states have restricted the case count data they share publicly.
Black Americansā vaccination rates still trail all other groups, while Hispanics show improvement. Native Americans show the strongest rates nationally.
Black Americans are receiving covid vaccines at a much lower rate than their white peers due to a combination of mistrust and access issues, leaving them behind in the mission to vaccinate the nationās population.
The federal health law includes a provision that allows states to alter some of its rules if they can think of a better way to provide health care to their residents, but itās not clear how far outside the box states can go.
In a letter to all governors, HHS Secretary Tom Price invited them to consider seeking federal help to set up reinsurance funds that would help cover losses that insurers have because of high numbers of sick patients.
With the most expensive medical care and health insurance premiums in the nation, Alaska seeks a novel way to bail out Obamacare.
The highest Obamacare insurance rates in the country are in Alaska. Though most people get a subsidy to help defray the cost, those who donāt are increasingly wondering if they should cancel their health insurance.
Valerie Davidson, an advocate who became Alaska's top health official, still loves spending her time fishing for salmon and cooking for her Yupāik family.
As more states make medical and recreational marijuana use legal, they increasingly are grappling with what constitutes DUID, or driving under the influence of drugs, and how to detect and prosecute it. And theyāre finding it is more difficult than identifying and convicting drunken drivers.
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