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Lauren Weber was a Midwest correspondent for Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News until December 2022.
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A months-long KHN examination of the system meant to bar fraudsters from Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health programs found gaping holes and expansive gray areas through which banned individuals slip to repeatedly bilk taxpayer-funded programs.
Health insurers and health care systems across the country are violating disability rights laws by sending medical bills that blind and visually impaired people cannot read, a KHN investigation has found. By hindering the ability of blind Americans to know what they owe, some bills get sent to debt collections.
As the covid-19 pandemic raged, an independent nonprofit tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hired an army of seasoned professionals to fill the gaps in the country’s public health system. Now, the money has largely run out, and state and local health departments are again without their expertise.
On top of fearing for their children’s lives, new parents of very fragile, very sick infants can face exorbitant hospital bills — even if they have insurance. Medical bills don’t go away if a child dies.
As private equity groups are swarming into aging America’s eye care, the consolidation is costing the U.S. health care system and patients more money.
Abortion access is shaping races for legal office across the country, from local district attorneys to attorneys general. But it’s also highlighting the boundaries of their offices.
Sexual health clinics are scrambling to properly track, test, and treat hundreds of monkeypox patients. So far, it isn’t going well.
Spurred on by opposition to pandemic-related health mandates, a coalition of religious liberty groups, conservative think tanks, and Republican state attorneys general has filed a cascade of litigation seeking to rein in the powers of public health authorities.
The pandemic disrupted all sense of normalcy for U.S. hospitals, so federal officials are proposing to pause financial penalties against the facilities and to block public access to key hospital safety data — such as the frequency of falls and sepsis — because of concerns that the data isn’t accurate enough. But consumer advocates are furious about the proposal.
A year ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded states and local health departments $2.25 billion to help people of color and other populations at higher risk from covid. But a KHN review shows public health agencies across the country have been slow to spend it.
Illinois used federal pandemic money to hire community health workers who connect people with food banks and rental assistance programs, just like public health officials have long hoped to do. What will happen to the community trust that has been built up when the federal money runs out and the workers disappear?
As the country enters Year 3 of the pandemic emergency, people with disabilities across the U.S. are still finding it difficult to use innovations in telemedicine, teleworking, and testing.
Almost a year after the American Rescue Plan Act allocated what could amount to $25 billion to home and community-based services run by Medicaid, many states have yet to access much of the money due to delays and red tape.
A public health official who said he was anti-abortion and anti-mandate for masks and covid vaccines did not pass the purity test of a Missouri senator who opposes covid public health restrictions. The senator killed the official’s nomination to be state health director, highlighting how hands may be tied in the nationwide fight against infectious diseases.
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.
Families who believe their loved ones contracted covid-19 while hospitalized are finding they have little recourse following a wave of liability shield legislation pushed by business interests.
A KHN investigation finds that hospitals with high rates of covid patients who didn’t have the diagnosis when they were admitted have rarely been held accountable due to multiple gaps in government oversight.
Following a February KHN investigation into covid vaccine accessibility, the Department of Justice reached an agreement with five New York government agencies to make their websites accessible to people who are visually impaired.
The pandemic is devastating rural America, where lower vaccination rates are compounding the already limited medical care.
At least 26 states have passed laws to permanently limit public health powers, a KHN investigation has found, weakening the country’s ability to fight not only the current resurgence of the pandemic but other health crises to come.
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