American Medical Response, the largest U.S. ambulance company, is ending nonemergency transportation for 12 hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties, saying the state doesn’t pay enough to transport low-income patients. The state is pushing back.
In Nevada, local health officials are assessing the threat of monkeypox, but their response may be hampered by historically limited public health infrastructure worn thin by the covid-19 pandemic.
Abortion isn’t the only health issue voters will be asked to decide in state ballot questions next month. Proposals about medical debt, Medicaid expansion, and whether health care should be a right are on ballots in various states. Meanwhile, the latest lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act has expanded to cover all preventive care. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more.
Montana has been a national model for how employers could gain control and transparency over medical bills. Upcoming changes to its model have health care price experts wondering whether the state is making improvements or losing focus.
Colorado, Florida, and Idaho are the latest states to opt out of a survey that tracks concerning behaviors in high school students. Officials cite low participation and state laws that require parental permission. But some advocates say dwindling state participation is an “enormous loss” that will make it harder to track signs of poor mental health — like drug and alcohol misuse and suicidal ideation — among teens.
A North Carolina state treasurer’s report found hospitals give conflicting information about whether they profit from Medicare patients. Experts said the findings are significant because they suggest the federal government has failed to closely watch the billions of dollars in tax breaks that nonprofit hospitals have received.
California voters will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to explicitly protect abortion rights. But there is disagreement over whether the proposal, Proposition 1, would merely enshrine existing rights or expand them.
A medical billing specialist investigated her husband’s ER bill. Her sleuthing took over a year but knocked thousands of dollars off the hospital’s charges — and provides a playbook for other consumers.
As Michigan and several other states await voters’ verdicts on ballot measures about abortion, the providers, patients, and activists on both sides strategize their next steps.
Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West is testing the waters on a $25 minimum wage for support staff at health care facilities in Southern California. Opposition from hospitals and health facilities is driving an expensive battle.
