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Andy Miller was Southern bureau editor for Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News until 2022.
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The Biden administration is getting rid of several policies implemented by Trump-era appointees that restricted enrollment. Federal officials now say states can no longer charge premiums to low-income residents enrolled in Medicaid and have ruled out work requirements.
Georgia lawmakers unveiled a mental health bill that would limit the profits of the managed-care companies that serve Medicaid patients. KHN previously reported that Georgia, unlike most states, does not set a medical loss ratio for the companies’ spending on medical care and quality improvements.
As omicron sweeps the country, many hospitals are dealing with a flood of people hospitalized with covid — including those primarily admitted for other reasons. While often milder cases, so-called incidental covid infections still drain the beleaguered health care workforce and can put them and other patients at higher risk for contracting covid.
States are required to set up transportation to medical appointments for adults, children and people with disabilities enrolled in the Medicaid program, and contracts can be worth tens of millions of dollars for transportation companies. But patients say the companies that deliver those rides are showing up late — and sometimes not at all — leaving them in bad weather, disrupting their care and even causing injuries.
Rural areas such as Echols County, Georgia, have high levels of uninsured people and profound physician shortages that compound the lack of health care options, especially in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid.
Nearly 14 million Americans have enrolled in Affordable Care Act marketplace health plans for next year — a record since the health law’s coverage expansion took effect in 2014. A boost in subsidies marketing and assistance in navigating the process increased the rolls of the insured.
A record number of hospitals closed in rural America last year. For the residents of Cuthbert, Georgia, the loss has meant many problems, including delayed care for emergencies that can turn deadly.
As hospital systems and insurers adjust to the pandemic, their contract negotiations grow increasingly fraught. Contracts for in-network care are ending without a new deal, leaving patients suddenly with out-of-network bills or scrambling to find new in-network providers.
The latest iteration of President Joe Biden's social-spending package would close the health insurance gap for at least 2.2 million people, making a huge difference especially in the South, where political opposition has blocked Medicaid expansion.
The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.
Health care workers already bore the brunt of workplace violence in the U.S. Now, tensions from an exhausting pandemic are spilling over into hospitals.
Since August, school bus drivers and monitors have died of covid-19 in at least 10 states, including Georgia and Florida. Masks are required on school buses, but enforcing the rules in districts without school mask mandates is especially hard to do.
Group homes and facilities that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities were hurting for staffers before the pandemic. Now the nationwide job crunch and pandemic pressures are making it even worse.
More than 40 states have turned to managed-care companies to control costs in their Medicaid programs, which cover low-income residents and people with disabilities. As Georgia prepares to open bidding on a new contract, the question looms: Has this model paid off?
Fall and football go hand in hand. But with covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths soaring from the delta variant, is it safe to go to the stadium? KHN asks the experts.
As covid case numbers rise nationwide, Georgia and some other states have restricted the case count data they share publicly.
Nursing home operators acknowledge that large numbers of staff members are not getting the shots but fear a federal vaccination mandate could drive away workers in a tight labor market.
Sweeping agreement with Georgia points to new Obama administration campaign to ensure people with mental illness and developmental disabilities get community services and are not forced into institutions.
Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wisconsin are considering taxing hospitals to help pay for Medicaid. Those extra funds can also generate more money from Washington.
Some of the laid-off workers receiving government help to pay for their COBRA health coverage are seeing those subsidies run out. Congress has yet to vote on an extension and employers and workers are worried about the future.
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