Author: Avisoscuba

In June 2019, Lija Greenseid handed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz an empty vial of insulin that her 13-year-old daughter had painted gold. Greenseid’s daughter has Type 1 diabetes, which means she requires daily injections of manufactured insulin to stay alive. The price of a single vial of insulin rose by about 1,200% between 1996 and 2018, and the gold vial was a reminder, Greenseid said, that this lifesaving pharmaceutical shouldn’t be as expensive as precious metal. “What I heard is that that gold vial remained on his desk at the governor’s office, and he brought it up throughout that summer…

Cara Anthony SIKESTON, Mo. — At age 79, Nannetta Forrest, whose father, Cleo Wright, was lynched in Sikeston, Missouri, before she was born, wonders how the decades-long silence that surrounded his death in 1942 influenced her life. In 2020, Sikeston police killed another young Black man, 23-year-old Denzel Taylor. Taylor’s shooting death immediately made local headlines, but then the cycle of silence in Sikeston repeated itself. Host Cara Anthony and pediatrician Rhea Boyd draw health parallels between the loss experienced by two families nearly 80 years apart. In both cases, young daughters were left behind to grapple with unanswered questions…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California voters are considering whether to roll back some of the criminal justice reforms enacted a decade ago as concerns about mass incarceration give way to public anger over property crime and a fentanyl crisis that has plagued the state since the covid-19 pandemic hit. Proposition 36, on the November ballot, would unwind portions of a 2014 initiative, known as Proposition 47, that reduced most shoplifting and drug possession offenses to misdemeanors that rarely carried jail time. Critics say that has allowed criminality to flourish and given those suffering from addiction little incentive to break the cycle.…

Federal officials resolved more than a decade ago to crack down on whopping government overpayments to private Medicare Advantage health insurance plans, which were siphoning off billions of tax dollars every year. But Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials have yet to demand any refunds — and over the years the private insurance plans have morphed into a politically potent juggernaut that has signed up more than 33 million seniors and is aggressively lobbying to stave off cuts. Critics have watched with alarm as the industry has managed to deflate or deflect financial penalties and steadily gain clout in…

KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony discussed healing from racial trauma on “America’s Heroes Group” on Sept. 20. Click here to watch Anthony on “America’s Heroes Group” Explore Anthony’s series on the topic, “Silence in Sikeston” KFF Health News contributor Andy Miller discussed Medicaid expansion in Georgia on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on Sept. 20. Click here to hear Miller on “The Georgia Health Report” Read Renuka Rayasam and Sam Whitehead’s “The First Year of Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement Is Mired in Red Tape” KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed the series “Payback: Tracking the Opioid Settlement…

There’s a new morning ritual in Pinedale, Wyoming, a town of about 2,000 nestled against the Wind River Mountains. Friends and neighbors in the oil- and gas-rich community “take their morning coffee and pull up” to watch workers building the county’s first hospital, said Kari DeWitt, the project’s public relations director. “I think it’s just gratitude,” DeWitt said. Sublette County is the only one in Wyoming — where counties span thousands of square miles — without a hospital. The 10-bed, 40,000-square-foot hospital, with a similarly sized attached long-term care facility, is slated to open by the summer of 2025. DeWitt,…

In a campaign ad this month, Derek Tran, a Democrat from Orange County, California, blasted his opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel, for supporting a national abortion ban and voting to limit access to birth control. Democratic challenger Will Rollins also called out his rival, Rep. Ken Calvert, and “MAGA extremists” in an ad last week for their backing of a bill that could criminalize medical practitioners who provide abortions. A few blocks from state Route 14 in Lancaster, about 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, Rep. Mike Garcia’s Democratic opponent, George Whitesides, planted two billboards promising to protect…

The Host Congress has left Washington for the campaign trail, but after the Nov. 5 general election lawmakers will have to complete work on the annual spending bills for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. While the GOP had hoped to push spending decisions into 2025, Democrats forced a short-term spending patch that’s set to expire before Christmas. Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, abortion continues to be among the hottest issues. Democrats are pressing their advantage with women voters while Republicans struggle — with apparently mixed effects — to neutralize it. This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF…

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One evening in May, nursing assistant Debra Ragoonanan’s vision blurred during her shift at a state-run Massachusetts veterans home. As her head spun, she said, she called her husband. He picked her up and drove her to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. It was the latest in a drumbeat of health issues that she traces to the first months of 2020, when dozens of veterans died at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, in one of the country’s deadliest covid-19 outbreaks at a long-term nursing facility. Ragoonanan has worked at the home for nearly 30…

Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Tim Sheehy “would let politicians like him ban abortion, with no exceptions for rape or to save a woman’s life, and criminalize women.” A Facebook ad from the campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), launched on Sept. 6, 2024 In a race that could decide control of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is attacking his challenger, Republican Tim Sheehy, for his stance on abortion.  Montana’s Senate race is one of a half-dozen tight contests around the country in which Democrats are defending seats needed to keep their one-seat majority. If Republicans flip Tester’s seat, they…

Sara McGinnis tenía nueve meses de embarazo de su segundo hijo y algo no iba bien. Su cuerpo estaba hinchado. Estaba cansada y mareada. Su esposo, Bradley McGinnis, dijo que ella le había informado a su doctor y enfermeras sobre sus síntomas e incluso había ido a la sala de emergencias cuando empeoraron. Pero, según Bradley, lo que le dijeron a su esposa fue: “‘Es verano y estás embarazada’. Eso me atormenta”. Dos días después, Sara sufrió un derrame cerebral masivo seguido de una convulsión. Sucedió de camino al hospital, a donde iba nuevamente por un dolor de cabeza insoportable.…

When Preston Nafz was 12, he asked his dad for permission to play lacrosse. “First practice, he came back, he said, ‘Dad, I love it,’” recalled his father, Lothar Nafz, of Hoover, Alabama. “He lives for lacrosse.” But years of youth sports took a toll on Preston’s body. By the time the teenager limped off the field during a lacrosse tournament last year, the pain in his left hip had become so intense that he had trouble with simple activities, such as getting out of a car or turning over in bed. Months of physical therapy and anti-inflammatory drugs didn’t…

Katheryn Houghton Sara McGinnis was pregnant with her second child and something felt off. Her body was swollen. She was tired and dizzy. Her husband, Bradley McGinnis, said she had told her doctor and nurses about her symptoms and even went to the emergency room when they worsened. But, Bradley said, what his wife was told in response was, “‘It’s summertime and you’re pregnant.’ That haunts me.” Two days later, Sara had a massive stroke followed by a seizure. It happened on the way to the hospital, where she was headed again due to a splitting headache. Sara, from Kalispell,…

KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony sat down with WORLD executive producer Chris Hastings to discuss the origins of the “Silence in Sikeston” project, which explores the impact of a 1942 lynching and a 2020 police shooting on a rural Missouri community. The collaboration with Retro Report includes a documentary film, educational videos, digital articles, and a limited-series podcast on the toll racism has on health. For more on the “Silence in Sikeston” project: WATCH: The documentary film “Silence in Sikeston,” a co-production of KFF Health News and Retro Report, is now available to stream on WORLD’s YouTube channel,…

En lo que se ha convertido en un patrón de diseminación de desinformación sobre las vacunas, el Departamento de Salud de Florida está aconsejando a sus residentes mayores y a otros en mayor riesgo de covid-19 que eviten la mayoría de los refuerzos, asegurando que son potencialmente peligrosos. Clínicos y científicos denuncian este mensaje como una táctica de miedo con motivación política que también debilita los esfuerzos para proteger contra enfermedades como el sarampión y la tos ferina. Un destacado médico de Florida expresó su consternación por el hecho de que los líderes médicos del estado, temerosos de enfurecer al…

Californians with medical debt will no longer have to worry about unpaid medical bills showing up on their credit reports under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, adding the nation’s most populous state to a growing effort to protect consumers squeezed by unaffordable medical bills. The bill, by Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) and backed by Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, will block health care providers, as well as any contracted collection agency, from sharing a patient’s medical debt with credit reporting agencies. At least eight states have banned medical bills from consumer credit reports in the past two…

Georgia is one of dozens of states that require health-care facilities to ask for permission to build or expand by obtaining “certificates of need.” Basically, state regulators get to decide whether a town needs a new hospital or long-term care center. If the need is deemed real, they’re granted a “CON.” The intent of the decades-old system is to reduce duplicating medical services in an area, which, supporters argue, drives up health-care spending and reduces quality — an idea generally supported by the hospital industry, especially nonprofits. But some researchers are skeptical. “The evidence is pretty darn overwhelming that CON…

Julie Appleby, KFF Health News Donald Trump could have destroyed the Affordable Care Act, but “he chose to build upon [it].” Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) on “Meet the Press,” Sept. 15 Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) on Sept. 15 told viewers of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump built up the Affordable Care Act, even though Trump could have chosen to do the opposite. “Donald Trump had two choices,” Vance, Trump’s running mate, said. “He could have destroyed the program, or he could actually build upon it and make it better so that Americans didn’t lose a lot…

En 2018, una serie de leyes estatales impidieron que una clínica de Planned Parenthood en Columbia, Missouri, siguiera practicando abortos. Poco después, la clínica envió parte de su equipamiento a otros estados donde el aborto seguía siendo accesible. Las sillas especiales, los equipos quirúrgicos y la iluminación de la clínica de Missouri —equipo costoso y en perfectas condiciones— todavía podían ser útiles en otros centros de salud administrados por la misma filial, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, en sus otros tres estados. Gran parte del equipo viajó a Oklahoma, donde la organización estaba en proceso de expansión, según explicó la directora…

Gerri Norington, de 78 años, nunca quiso estar sola al envejecer. Pero su primer matrimonio acabó en divorcio y su segundo marido murió hace más de 30 años. Cuando una relación de cinco años llegó a su fin en 2006, se encontró sola, y así sigue desde entonces. “Echo de menos tener un compañero con el que poder hablar y preguntarle ‘¿Qué tal el día?’ o ‘¿Qué opinas de lo que pasa en el mundo?’”, dijo Norington, que vive en un edificio de apartamentos para mayores en el South Side de Chicago. Aunque tiene una hija que la adora en…

Noam N. Levey and Ames Alexander, Charlotte Observer Illustration by Oona Zenda North Carolina officials had been quietly laboring for months on an ambitious plan to tackle the state’s mammoth medical debt problem when Gov. Roy Cooper stepped before cameras in July to announce the initiative. But as Cooper stood by the stairs of the executive mansion and called for “freeing people from medical debt,” the future of his administration’s work hung in the balance. Negotiations were fraying between the state and the powerful hospital industry over the plan to make hospitals relieve patient debt or lose billions of dollars…