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Barbara Kingsolver won a Pulitzer Prize for her bestselling novel about Appalachiaâs drug crisis. She invested some of the proceeds into a home for women trying to beat substance use disorders.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
The GOP said its overhaul of Medicaid was aimed at reducing fraud and getting more adult beneficiaries to work. Among the likely side effects: fewer services and doctors for treating sick children.
Some doctors and the groups that represent them say physiciansâ extensive training leads to better emergency care, and that some hospitals are trying to save money by not hiring them. They support new laws in Indiana, Virginia, and South Carolina that require physicians to be on-site 24/7.
The workforce of a federal agency that oversees billions in grants for primary health care, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health services, and workforce training has been slashed, sparking fears of whatâs to come.
In their zeal to âMake America Healthy Again,â top Trump administration officials depict patients and the doctors who treat them as partly responsible for whatever ails them.
Significant numbers of older people have the condition. Many find relief with an effective treatment that is being more widely prescribed.
States that run their own health insurance marketplaces fear an end to automatic Obamacare reenrollment under the tax and spending megabill would have an outsize effect on their policyholders.
In 2017, when President Donald Trump tried to repeal Obamacare and roll back Medicaid coverage, Republican governors helped turn Congress against it. Now, as Trump tries again to scale back Medicaid, Republican governors â whose constituents stand to lose federal funding and health coverage â have gone quiet on the health consequences.
Some of the nationâs most well-known beaches are managed by the National Park Service, which saw about 1,000 employees laid off in February by the quasi-agency Department of Government Efficiency, then led by Elon Musk. The void has become a serious public health and safety concern.
Understaffed nursing homes face a workforce crisis if President Donald Trump and Republicans further curtail immigration and cut Medicaid.
Health insurers issue millions of prior authorization denials every year, leaving many patients stuck in a convoluted appeals process, with little hope of meaningful policy change ahead. For doctors, these denials are frustrating and time-consuming. For patients, they can be devastating.
A new drug is helping families whoâve spent years padlocking fridges, chaining garbage cans, and hiding food as their children with Prader-Willi syndrome deal with unrelenting hunger. But additional progress â and a broader understanding of obesity â is now under threat as the government dismantles the pipeline for promising new research.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to block a state law that requires nursing homes to have 96 hours of backup power in the case of emergencies, potentially giving the industry a break from spending over $1 billion on facility upgrades. Patient advocates say rolling back the nursing home industry requirements for preparedness could jeopardize the safety of residents.
Ballad Health, a state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in Tennessee and Virginia, can now be deemed a âclear and convincingâ benefit to the public with performance that would earn a âDâ on most grading scales, according to Tennessee state documents.
The Trump administration has paused implementation of a rule limiting minersâ exposure to airborne silica dust days after a federal court agreed to put it on hold to hear an industry challenge. The protections are meant to head off a surge in cases of black lung disease. Meanwhile, any enforcement of new standards might be meager due to workforce cuts.
Michael Kestner, CEO of Pain MD, was convicted of 13 fraud felonies after his company gave patients hundreds of thousands of questionable injections at clinics in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Republicans, on the hunt for spending cuts, are eyeing a special kind of Medicaid tax that nearly every state uses to boost funding for hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.
Roughly 20 states now have laws permitting families to place cameras in the rooms of loved ones. Facility operators are often opposed.
Undue Medical Debt is retiring unpaid medical bills for 20 million people. The debt trading company that owned them is leaving the market.
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