About 3.7 million people are at immediate risk of losing health coverage should the federal government cut funding for Medicaid expansions, as some allies of President-elect Donald Trump have proposed. Coverage could be at risk in the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid.
Despite widespread support for protecting abortion rights, voters said the cost of gas, housing, food, and health care was more important to their choice for president.
Voters in 10 states weighed in on abortion rights this election. Despite the results supporting abortion rights in seven of those states, much of the abortion landscape on abortion won’t change much immediately, as medical providers navigate the legal hurdles that remain.
Uber and Lyft have become a critical part of the nation’s infrastructure for transporting ailing people from their homes — even in rural areas — to medical care sites in major cities such as Atlanta.
In red and blue states, state lawmakers from both parties are expanding protections for patients burdened by medical debt.
A famed breast cancer surgeon has created a California alternative to a major Texas event. Yet many doctors believe boycotting medical conferences in states that criminalize abortion accomplishes nothing and can be harmful.
An increasing number of Americans struggle with energy poverty, the inability to adequately heat or cool one’s dwelling. Health officials and climate experts are sounding the alarm as record-breaking heat sweeps the nation.
Abortion and reproductive health issues headlined the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as expected. But what Vice President Kamala Harris has in mind for other health policies as the Democratic nominee remains something of a mystery. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump says he would not use the 19th-century Comstock Act to impose, in effect, a national ban on abortion, which angered his anti-abortion backers. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Tony Leys, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about a woman who fought back after being charged for two surgeries despite undergoing only one.
The end of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage protections coincided with changes in more than a dozen states to expand coverage for lower-income people, including children, pregnant women, and the incarcerated.
Both Florida and Arizona want to expand eligibility for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, but their approaches to charging low-income families premiums for the coverage showcase the nation’s ideological divide on helping the disadvantaged.
