Centene, the largest Medicaid managed-care company in the U.S., has thrown more than $26.9 million at political campaigns across the country since 2015, especially focused on states where it is wooing Medicaid contracts and settling accusations that it overbilled taxpayers. Among its tactics: Centene is skirting contribution limits by giving to candidates through its many subsidiaries.
Rising sea levels and severe hurricanes are displacing Indigenous people in Southern Louisiana and harming health. Episode 11 explores the United Houma Nation’s push for federal tribal recognition and the climate-change help that could come with it.
Students in many places are starting the new school year with their masks off — even in one Colorado county that was one of the nation’s first delta variant hot spots.
Black and Hispanic students have lost up to 12 months of learning, which could lead to lower incomes and shorter, sicker lives.
Even those not infected by the virus could suffer health problems related to poverty, job loss, eviction — or all of the above. And the pandemic drove the nation’s largest decline in life expectancy since World War II.
Louisiana’s St. James Parish Hospital thought the vaccine would mean the end of its long covid fight. Then the ICU beds surrounding them ran out.
Colorado voters will decide whether to ban most abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy, which would eliminate a haven for people seeking to end their pregnancies in the Midwest and Mountain West.
In a decision that surprised both sides of the polarized abortion debate, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times join KHN’s Julie Rovner to break down what happened, what comes next and how this case could provide a clue to the one challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberals in the 5-4 decision that strikes down a state law requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Although laws prohibit price gouging on precious resources in times of emergency, states have been forced to compete for a share of the nation’s stockpile of ventilators — used to treat the sickest COVID patients — or pay top dollar on sideline deals. With quality and quantity control lacking, what happens when the pandemic’s second wave hits?
