Tire Toxicity Faces Fresh Scrutiny After Salmon Die-Offs Jim Robbins For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road. At the top of the list of […]

  California Legislators Debate Froot Loops and Free Condoms Don Thompson SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California state lawmakers this year are continuing their progressive tilt on health policy with dozens of proposals including a ban on a Froot Loops ingredient and free condoms for high schoolers. As states increasingly fracture along partisan lines, California Democrats are […]

Millions Were Booted From Medicaid. The Insurers That Run It Gained Medicaid Revenue Anyway. Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News Private Medicaid health plans lost millions of members in the past year as pandemic protections that prohibited states from dropping anyone from the government program expired. But despite Medicaid’s unwinding, as it’s known, at least two […]

  Unsheltered People Are Losing Medicaid in Redetermination Mix-Ups Aaron Bolton, MTPR KALISPELL, Mont. — On a cold February morning at the Flathead Warming Center, Tashya Evans waited for help with her Medicaid application as others at the shelter got ready for the day in this northwestern Montana city. Evans said she lost Medicaid coverage […]

  Rural Jails Turn to Community Health Workers To Help the Newly Released Succeed Lillian Mongeau Hughes MANTI, Utah — Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside this small, rural town where he grew up. He blames […]

  Biden Administration Sets Higher Staffing Mandates. Most Nursing Homes Don’t Meet Them. Jordan Rau, KFF Health News The Biden administration finalized nursing home staffing rules Monday that will require thousands of them to hire more nurses and aides — while giving them years to do so. The new rules from the Centers for Medicare […]

  The Path to a Better Tuberculosis Vaccine Runs Through Montana Jim Robbins A team of Montana researchers is playing a key role in the development of a more effective vaccine against tuberculosis, an infectious disease that has killed more people than any other. The BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guérin) vaccine, created in 1921, remains the sole […]

  Medicare’s Push To Improve Chronic Care Attracts Businesses, but Not Many Doctors Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News and Holly K. Hacker Carrie Lester looks forward to the phone call every Thursday from her doctors’ medical assistant, who asks how she’s doing and if she needs prescription refills. The assistant counsels her on dealing with […]

  Native Americans Have Shorter Life Spans. Better Health Care Isn’t the Only Answer. Arielle Zionts HISLE, S.D. — Katherine Goodlow is only 20, but she has experienced enough to know that people around her are dying too young. Goodlow, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, said she’s lost six friends and acquaintances […]

  Lawsuit Alleges Obamacare Plan-Switching Scheme Targeted Low-Income Consumers Julie Appleby, KFF Health News A wide-ranging lawsuit filed Friday outlines a moneymaking scheme by which large insurance sales agency call centers enrolled people into Affordable Care Act plans or switched their coverage, all without their permission. According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court […]