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When North Carolina launched Medicaid expansion on Dec. 1, state officials said the measure would provide health insurance to an estimated 600,000 low-income adults over a span of two years. It took just two months to reach 58 percent of that goal. More than 346,400 newly eligible beneficiaries have been approved for coverage as of Feb. 1, according to data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. (Baxley, 2/15)

Supporters gathered at the Capitol on Wednesday morning to celebrate advances in securing Medicaid coverage for some undocumented children in Connecticut, but also to reiterate demands for further expansion this session. (Golvala and Carlesso, 2/14)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: New Eligibility Rules Are A Financial Salve For Nearly 2 Million On Medi-Cal 

Millions of Medi-Cal beneficiaries can now save for a rainy day, keep an inheritance, or hold on to a modest nest egg, without losing coverage, thanks to an eligibility change phased in over the past year and a half. It also has opened the door for thousands who previously did not qualify for Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for low-income residents that covers over one-third of California’s population. Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who are aged, blind, disabled, in long-term care, or in the federal Supplemental Security Income program, faced limits on the value of financial accounts and personal property they could hold to qualify for coverage. Now, nearly 2 million of them will no longer face these restrictions, putting them on par with the roughly 12 million other Medi-Cal beneficiaries who don’t have asset limits. (Wolfson, 2/15)

While nearly every state now provides Medicaid coverage for a full year after giving birth, cost concerns and political opposition in some states have prevented the policy from being fully adopted nationwide. (Goldman, 2/15)

Missouri’s highest court for the second time in four years rebuked lawmakers’s efforts to ban abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. The legislature included a line in the 2022 state budget to spend $0 for any Medicaid-covered services if the provider also offers abortions or is affiliated with an abortion provider. (Spoerre, 2/14)

San Francisco’s overdose epidemic showed no signs of slowing in January, with 66 people dying from accidental drug overdoses during the first month of 2024, according to preliminary data released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Wednesday. The latest figures come on the heels of a particularly deadly year: a record 806 people died in 2023 from accidental drug doses, the most ever recorded since San Francisco began tracking the deaths in 2020. (Ho, 2/14)

Experts say syphilis is a growing concern in Orange County. This month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published research that showed syphilis cases had spiked from 2018 to 2022. Cases of babies born with syphilis were a particularly concerning spike. (Pedersen, 2/14)

With the bill citing an “urgent need” to increase the number of doctors and other workers to care for people with mental health and substance-abuse issues, the Florida Senate on Tuesday began moving forward with a $114 million plan that includes designating behavioral health teaching hospitals. (Saunders, 2/14)

An 18-year-old transgender patient whose surgery was called off when Children’s Hospital Colorado stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries is suing the hospital. The ACLU of Colorado filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of the 18-year-old, claiming the hospital violated state anti-discrimination laws. (Brown, 2/14)

A U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday ordered Houston to temporarily stop enforcing a law that requires city permission before anyone can serve more than five people in need on public property. The order marked a significant victory for Food Not Bombs, a group that has provided free meals outside of Central Library downtown for roughly two decades and received nearly 100 tickets for doing so since 2023. The ruling is a part of the group’s federal lawsuit against the city claiming that the food service is a form of constitutionally protected protest. (Schuetz, 2/14)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Early Detection May Help Kentucky Tamp Down Its Lung Cancer Crisis 

Anthony Stumbo’s heart sank after the doctor shared his mother’s chest X-ray. “I remember that drive home, bringing her back home, and we basically cried,” said the internal medicine physician, who had started practicing in eastern Kentucky near his childhood home shortly before his mother began feeling ill. “Nobody wants to get told they’ve got inoperable lung cancer. I cried because I knew what this meant for her.” (Huff, 2/15)