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While many Republican state lawmakers remain firmly against Medicaid expansion, some key leaders in holdout states are showing a willingness to reconsider. Public opinion, financial incentives, and widening health care needs make resistance harder.
After a decade of work, a Kentucky program launched to diagnose lung cancer earlier is beginning to change the prognosis for residents by catching tumors when theyāre more treatable.
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether theyāll pay for patientsā drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
For the first time, a jury has convicted a parent of a school shooter of charges related to the childās crime, finding a mother in Michigan guilty of involuntary manslaughter and possibly opening a new legal avenue for gun control advocates. Meanwhile, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case challenging the FDAās approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, a medical publisher has retracted some of the journal studies that lower-court judges relied on in their decisions. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Rachana Pradhan of Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News join Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for āextra credit,ā the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
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.
Injectable penicillin is the go-to treatment for syphilis and the only treatment considered safe for pregnant people with the disease. But as rates of syphilis increase across the U.S., a shortage of the injectable has prompted some public health agencies to ration it.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion and many states banned the procedure, reproductive health care organizations hired dozens of people to help patients arrange travel and pay for care.
Ketamine, approved by the FDA as an anesthetic in 1970, is emerging as a major alternative mental health treatment, and there are now more than 500 ketamine clinics around the country. But with little regulation and widely varying treatment protocols, itās a medical "wild West."
As national prescription drug distributors and pharmacies restricted the flow of oxycodone and other painkillers in response to the growing opioid crisis, Floridaās most popular grocery store ramped up its sales and distribution of the highly addictive drugs, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis of federal data.
Opposition to vaccines and other public health measures backed by science has become politically charged. That makes dangerous misinformation much harder to fight.
New Hampshire voters have spoken, and it seems increasingly clear that this Novemberās election will pit President Joe Biden against former President Donald Trump. Both appear to be making health a key part of their campaigns, with Trump vowing (again) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and Biden stressing his support for contraception and abortion rights. Meanwhile, both candidates will try to highlight efforts to rein in prescription drug prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call join Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Sarah Somers of the National Health Law Program about the potential consequences for the health care system if the Supreme Court overturns a key precedent attempting to balance executive vs. judicial power.
The suicide rate for Hispanics in the United States has increased significantly over the past decade. The reasons are varied, say community leaders and mental health experts, citing factors such as language barriers, poverty, and a lack of bilingual mental health professionals.
Hospitals nationwide face growing scrutiny over how they secure payment from patients, but at one community hospital, the debt collection machine has been quietly humming along for decades.
Californiaās governor vetoed a bill extending insurance coverage for kids with hearing loss, but most states now require it.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans become disabled or die each year because of a diagnostic error. But some patients are at higher risk than others.
Federal officials have long warned that restraint and seclusion in schools can be dangerous and traumatizing for children, but school districts often fail to report incidents as required by law.
Fewer than two dozen rural hospitals were converted into Rural Emergency Hospitals in the programās first year. Now, advocates and lawmakers say tweaks to the law are necessary to lure more takers and keep health care in rural communities.
Alex Azar advanced Canadian drug importation as Donald Trumpās secretary of Health and Human Services. Now he chairs the board of a company managing Floridaās importation program.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haleyās tenure in the Palmetto State ā which overlapped with several tumultuous years of health care reform ā and her recent comments offer clues to how her presidency might affect national health care policy.
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