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The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition. Health care might not have been the biggest issue in the campaign, but the return of Donald Trump to the presidency is likely to have a seismic impact on health policy over the next four years.  Changes to the…

Voters in three states — Arizona, Missouri, and Nevada — chose on Tuesday to advance protections for abortion rights in their state constitutions. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is likely to win all three states in his victorious bid for the White House. It’s a conundrum for Democrats, who expected ballot initiatives on abortion rights in those states to boost the prospects of their candidates, including Vice President Kamala Harris. But data from VoteCast, a large survey of U.S. voters conducted by The Associated Press and partners including KFF, found that about 3 in 10 voters in Arizona, Missouri, and Nevada who…

Voters in Missouri and Nebraska approved ballot measures Tuesday that guarantee paid leave for sick workers. Alaska voters seem poised to pass a similar measure that has a wide lead. These two Republican-led states join 15 others and D.C. — largely Democratic-controlled places — in requiring some employers to provide workers with paid sick leave. Proponents cheered Tuesday’s results. “Thanks to the voters, we can ensure that hard working Nebraskans don’t have to choose between paying their bills or caring for their health,” Jodi Lepaopao, campaign manager for Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans, wrote in a statement. The coronavirus pandemic elevated the issue by…

California this year took the final step in opening Medi-Cal, its Medicaid program, to every eligible resident regardless of immigration status. It’s a significant expansion for an already massive safety net program. Medi-Cal’s annual spending now stands at $157 billion, serving about 15 million low-income residents, more than a third of Californians. Of those, about 1.5 million are immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization, costing an estimated $6.4 billion, according to the Department of Health Care Services. They have been gradually added to the program as the state lifted legal residency as an eligibility requirement for children in 2016,…

A new federal watchdog audit is ratcheting up pressure on government officials to crack down on billions of dollars in overcharges linked to Medicare Advantage home visits. But so far, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has rejected a recommendation from the Health and Human Services Inspector General to limit payments stemming from house visits that don’t result in any medical treatment — a potential red flag that may signal overcharges. In late October, the HHS watchdog found that the health plans pocketed $7.5 billion in 2023 from diagnosing health conditions that prompted no medical services — about $4.2…

Voters backed abortion rights in seven of the 10 states where the issue appeared on ballots Tuesday, including in Missouri, among the first states to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At first glance, the nation’s patchwork of abortion rules was seemingly reshaped. But when Alison Dreith, director of strategic partnerships at the Midwest Access Coalition abortion fund, which has helped people from Missouri and 27 other states get abortions, was asked before the results came in how her organization was preparing for logistic…

Natalie Holt sees reminders nearly everywhere of the serious toll a years-long syphilis outbreak has taken in South Dakota. Scrambling to tamp down the spread of the devastating disease, public health officials are blasting messages to South Dakotans on billboards and television, urging people to get tested. Holt works in Aberdeen, a city of about 28,000 surrounded by a sea of prairie, as a physician and the chief medical officer for the Great Plains Area Indian Health Service, one of 12 regional divisions of the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the…

Aneri Pattani To discover how millions in opioid settlement funds are being spent in Idaho, you can visit the state attorney general’s website, which hosts 91 documents from state and local entities getting the money. What you’ll find is a lot of bureaucratese. Nearly three years ago, these jurisdictions signed an agreement promising annual reports “specifying the activities and amounts” they have funded. But many of those reports remain difficult, if not impossible, for the average person to decipher. It’s a scenario playing out in a host of states. As state and local governments begin spending billions in opioid settlement…

Molly Castle Work If President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican Senate try to roll back reproductive health rights or pursue a widely prophesied national abortion ban, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is poised to challenge him. Two years ago, Bonta, a Democrat who heads the state justice department, directed his staff to draft legal analyses against a possible national abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 50 years of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade. Bonta said they thought through arguments, even going so far as to decide in which court they would file suit. Bonta said his team…

RICHMOND, Vt. — On a warm autumn morning, Roger Brown walked through a grove of towering trees whose sap fuels his maple syrup business. He was checking for damage after recent flooding. But these days, his workers’ health worries him more than his trees’. The cost of Slopeside Syrup’s employee health insurance premiums spiked 24% this year. Next year it will rise 14%. The jumps mean less money to pay workers, and expensive insurance coverage that doesn’t ensure employees can get care, Brown said. “Vermont is seen as the most progressive state, so how is health care here so screwed…

Voters backed abortion rights in seven of the 10 states where the issue appeared on ballots Tuesday — at first glance, seemingly reshaping the nation’s patchwork of abortion rules. Colorado, Maryland, Montana, and New York — states where abortions are already permitted at least until fetal viability — all will add abortion protections to their state constitutions. Nevada voters also favored protections and can enshrine them by passing the measure again in the next general election. Florida and South Dakota voters, meanwhile, did not pass abortion rights amendments, and Nebraska voters essentially affirmed the state’s existing ban on abortions after…

HURON, S.D. — Kelly Engebretson was excited to get fitted for a prosthetic after having part of his leg amputated. But he wasn’t sure how he’d get to the appointment. Nah Thu Thu Win’s twin sons needed vaccinations before starting kindergarten. But she speaks little English, and the boys lacked health insurance. William Arce and Wanda Serrano were recovering from recent surgeries. But the couple needed help sorting out their insurance and understanding their bills. Engebretson, Win, Arce, and Serrano were fortunate to have someone to help. They’re all paired with community health workers in Huron, a city of 14,000…

In the final days of the campaign, stark disagreements between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump over the future of American health care are on display — in particular, in sober warnings about abortion access, the specter of future cuts to the Affordable Care Act, and bold pronouncements about empowering activists eager to change course and clean house. Trump and his campaign have been vague about plans on health care policies, though current and former Trump aides have published blueprints that go well beyond reversing programs in force under the Biden administration, to overhauling public health agencies…

On the campaign trail, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are eager to portray themselves as guardians of Medicare. Each presidential candidate accuses the other of backing spending cuts and other policies that would damage the health insurance program for older Americans. But the election’s outcome could alter the very nature of the nearly 60-year-old federal program. More than half of Medicare beneficiaries are already enrolled in plans, called Medicare Advantage, run by commercial insurers, and if Trump wins, that proportion is expected to grow — perhaps dramatically. Trump and many congressional Republicans have already taken…

Jacob Gardenswartz “Right To Try” experimental drug program saved “thousands and thousands of lives” Former President Donald Trump on Aug. 30 Former President Donald Trump has boasted in recent months about “Right To Try,” a law he signed in 2018. It’s aimed at boosting terminally ill patients’ access to potentially lifesaving medications not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. “We have things to fight off diseases that will not be approved for another five or six years that people that are very sick, terminally ill, should be able to use. But there was no mechanism for doing it,”…

During cheerleading practice in April, Jana Duey’s sixth grade daughter, Karter, sustained a concussion when she fell several feet headfirst onto a gym floor mat. Days after, Karter still had a headache, dizziness, and sensitivity to light and noise. Karter rested for a week and a half at home in Centennial, Colorado, then returned to school when her concussion symptoms were tolerable — initially for just half-days and with accommodations allowing her to do schoolwork on paper instead of a screen and take extra time to get to and from classes. Karter went to the nurse’s office when she had…

Samantha Liss Illustration by Oona Zenda ST. LOUIS — Inside the more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country, not a single nun can be found occupying a chief executive suite, according to the Catholic Health Association. Nuns founded and led those hospitals in a mission to treat sick and poor people, but some were also shrewd business leaders. Sister Irene Kraus, a former chief executive of Daughters of Charity National Health System, was famous for coining the phrase “no margin, no mission.” It means hospitals must succeed — generating enough revenue to exceed expenses — to fulfill their original…

Dentro de los más de 600 hospitales católicos en todo el país, no se puede encontrar ni una sola monja ocupando una oficina ejecutiva, según la Catholic Health Association. Las monjas fundaron y dirigieron esos hospitales con la misión de atender a personas enfermas y pobres, aunque algunas también eran líderes empresariales astutas. La hermana Irene Kraus, ex directora ejecutiva del Sistema Nacional de Salud de las Hijas de la Caridad, fue famosa por acuñar la frase “sin margen, no hay misión”. Esto significa que los hospitales deben tener éxito —generando suficientes ingresos para superar los gastos— para cumplir con…

Durante la práctica de porristas en abril, Karter, la hija de Jana Duey que cursa el sexto grado, sufrió una conmoción cerebral cuando cayó de cabeza desde varios pies de altura sobre una colchoneta en el gimnasio. Días después, la joven aún tenía dolor de cabeza, mareos y sensibilidad a la luz y al ruido. Karter descansó una semana y media en su casa en Centennial, Colorado, y luego regresó a la escuela cuando sus síntomas de conmoción fueron tolerables; al principio, solo iba medio día y con un calendario adaptado que le permitía hacer tareas en papel en lugar…

Becky Carroll was missing a few teeth, and others were stained or crooked. Ashamed, she smiled with lips pressed closed. Her dentist offered to fix most of her teeth with root canals and crowns, Carroll said, but she was wary of traveling a long road of dental work. Then Carroll saw a TV commercial for another path: ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers. The company advertises that it can give patients “a new smile in as little as one day” by surgically replacing teeth instead of fixing them. So Carroll saved and borrowed for the surgery, she said. In an interview and…

Samantha Liss ST. LOUIS — Voters in Missouri, Nebraska, and Alaska will soon decide whether workers in those states should be entitled to paid sick leave. If approved, the ballot measures would allow many workers to accrue paid time off, a benefit supporters say means workers — especially those with low-paying jobs — would no longer have to fear losing wages or possibly the jobs themselves for getting sick. Proponents say such policies benefit the broader public, too, allowing workers to stay home when sick or to care for ill family members to stem the spread of infectious diseases. But…

Joanne Kenen Maria Sanchez immigrated to the Chicago area from Mexico about 30 years ago. Now 87, she’s still living in the U.S. without authorization. Like many longtime immigrants, she has worked — and paid taxes, including Medicare taxes — all that time. But Sanchez never had health insurance, and when she turned 65, she couldn’t enroll in Medicare. She has never had preventive care or screenings. No physicals. No cholesterol checks. No mammograms. “Nada, nada, nada,” she said in an interview conducted in Spanish. Nothing, nothing, nothing. When she did get sick, she delayed seeking care until she was…