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Some consumers who think they are signing up for Obamacare insurance find out later they actually purchased a membership to a health care sharing ministry. But regulators and online advertising sites don鈥檛 do much about it.
Stemming gun violence is back on the legislative agenda following three mass shootings in less than a month, but it鈥檚 hard to predict success when so many previous efforts have failed. Meanwhile, lawmakers must soon decide if they will extend current premium subsidies for those buying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and the Biden administration acts, belatedly, on Medicare premiums. Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat News join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN鈥檚 Michelle Andrews, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR 鈥淏ill of the Month鈥 episode about a too-common problem: denial of no-cost preventive care for a colonoscopy under the Affordable Care Act.
Montana, one of about a dozen states still managing its own Medicaid programs, has a new Medicaid director who championed handing the management of the program to private companies in Iowa and Kansas.
Travel nurse contracts that were plentiful and paid the temporary nurses far more than hospital staff nurses are vanishing. Hospitals nationwide are turning their energies to recruiting full-time people.
Legislators in Kansas are pushing bills to expand exemptions for school vaccines, allowing religious exemptions for all vaccine requirements in the state's schools without families having to provide any proof of their beliefs. Similar bills are being introduced around the nation as the anti-vaccine movement gains traction among politicians.
Five states have created 鈥渁ssistant physician鈥 licenses that allow medical school graduates to practice without completing residency training. But a federal indictment in Missouri of one assistant physician has some original supporters trying to rein in the medical specialty.
Almost a year after the American Rescue Plan Act allocated what could amount to $25 billion to home and community-based services run by Medicaid, many states have yet to access much of the money due to delays and red tape.
The top 12 states using antibody therapies produced by Regeneron and Lilly 鈥 which research shows don鈥檛 work against the omicron variant 鈥 include several Southern states with some of the nation鈥檚 lowest vaccination rates, but also California, which ranks among the top 20 for fully vaccinated residents.
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.
More than 1,000 independent rural pharmacies have closed since 2003, leaving 630 communities with no retail drugstore. As 41 million people stuck in pharmacy deserts make do, the remaining drugstores struggle to survive.
Check out the latest bonus episodes from the award-winning "Where It Hurts" podcast.
Among the people still reluctant to get vaccinated 鈥 and pushing against mandates 鈥 are firefighters, many of whom also respond to medical calls as paramedics and EMTs and have witnessed the ravages of the pandemic firsthand.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) introduced a bill to do away with a health insurance rule that dictates which parent鈥檚 plan becomes a new baby鈥檚 primary insurer. This could save some parents from unexpected, sometimes massive medical bills. Davids took up the issue after a KHN/NPR Bill of the Month story on one family鈥檚 unexpected $207,455 NICU bill.
Fort Scott, Kansas, was hit hard by the pandemic, and it no longer has a hospital. But residents remain skeptical about the impact of the coronavirus.
After nearly a decade鈥檚 worth of federal inspections, reprimands and corrective action plans, has Pfizer fixed the facility that will be filling vials of its covid vaccine?
Grappling with stagnant pay and a lack of personal protective equipment, firefighters are even more frustrated to find they are lower down the vaccine priority list than health care workers despite serving on the front lines of the medical system.
Legislatures in conservative-leaning states across the country are pushing bills that would restrict abortion and, with a conservative Supreme Court in place, could erode abortion protections under Roe v. Wade.
Charlie Kjelshus needed neonatal intensive care for the first seven days of her life. The episode generated huge bills, and left her parents in a tangle of red tape that involved two insurers, two hospitals and two states.
A Kansas woman thought she鈥檇 find help at her local emergency room. What she found instead was a packed hospital and an ambulance ride to someplace else.
Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain. Meanwhile, mask-wearing and other pandemic prevention measures remain spotty in rural counties.
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