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Turning Iowa's Medicaid program over to private operators will save money and improve service, a top state official said Wednesday, but lawmakers questioned how it would impact people enrolled in the program. Department of Human Services Director Chuck Palmer told the Legislature's Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee that the state is moving forward with a plan to shift the Medicaid program to two or more managed care organizations, to which Iowa will pay fixed amount per enrollee to provide health coverage. (2/25)

Mississippi has a sickly reputation. The Magnolia State ranks at or near the bottom in most health rankings: worst infant mortality and most kids born with low birth weight; second-to-highest rate of obesity and cancer deaths; second from the last in diabetes outcomes. (Pittman, 2/26)

A bipartisan group of lawmakers hopes to expand the reach of “telemedicine” in Minnesota by requiring health insurers to pay for remote consultations the same way they do for in-person visits. (Browning, 2/25)

State auditors say Maryland's health department did not follow proper procedure when it hired a contractor to replace the system used to process Medicaid payments. The department later had to suspend work with the company. In a report released Wednesday, auditors said the Department of Health and Mental and Hygiene did not follow the procurement process, and kept information that raised red flags about the contractor from the state Board of Public Works, which approved the five-year, $171 million contract. (McDaniels and Cohn, 2/25)

A proposal for controlling Kansas' costs for expensive mental health drugs in its Medicaid program failed Wednesday in the state Senate because some members worried that patients wouldn't get the medications they need. The Senate voted 25-15 against a bill repealing a 2002 law that prohibits restrictions in Medicaid on prescriptions for treating mental illnesses, such as a list of preferred drugs for doctors, or a requirement that the program sign off before a prescription is made. The state's $3 billion-a-year Medicaid program provides health coverage for 368,000 needy and disabled state residents. (Hanna, 2/25)

Shouting the slogan "keep the doors open," several hundred supporters of Maryland's mental health and drug treatment programs rallied outside the State House in Annapolis Wednesday to protest proposed cuts in the budget for compensating care providers. Mental illness patients, recovering drug addicts and parents of children with those problems were among the speakers as members of the Behavioral Care Coalition gathered to seek the restoration of about $23 million. Those funds were trimmed from such programs under the Hogan and O'Malley administrations as a means to close a revenue shortfall. (Dresser, 2/25)

New Jersey hospitals will be getting a lot less money from the state government to deliver charity care to uninsured people under Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed 2015-2016 budget. Administration officials say there’s a good reason for the cuts: the Affordable Care Act has dramatically reduced the ranks of the uninsured. But hospitals contend that it’s too soon to know how much they’ll be getting from the ACA or if that money will offset the proposed reductions. (2/25)

Legislative budget writers grilled Delaware Medicaid officials Wednesday on delays in a program aimed at reducing waste, fraud and abuse, and about the lack of access by thousands of Medicaid enrollees to the state's only children's hospital. With the state facing a tight budget year and the Joint Finance Committee trying to balance a $3.9 billion operating budget proposed by Gov. Jack Markell, co-chair Sen. Harris McDowell III wondered why the Department of Health and Social Services has lagged on reducing fraud and waste in the state's $1.9 billion Medicaid program. (Chase, 2/25)

A bill that would allocate $5 million in taxpayer funds to provide IUDs for low-income teens and young women in Colorado moved through its first House committee Tuesday, garnering the vote of one unlikely supporter — an El Paso County Republican. (Kerwin McCrimmon, 2/25)

Proposition 47 is having a profound effect on Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system, from the jails to mental health treatment to workloads for prosecutors and public defenders, according to a draft report by the county’s chief executive. (Sewell and Chang, 2/25)

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a state regulatory board made up mostly of dentists violated federal law against unfair competition when it tried to prevent lower-cost competitors in other fields from offering teeth-whitening services. By a 6-3 vote, the justices rejected arguments from the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners that it was acting in the best interests of consumers when it pressured nondentists to get out of the lucrative trade in teeth-whitening services. (2/25)

In 2014, Gov. Peter Shumlin devoted his State of the State address to what he called a “full-blown heroin crisis” in Vermont. The State Legislature enacted many of his initiatives, including giving one-time grants to addiction clinics to help them reduce the size of their waiting lists. The Central Vermont Addiction Medicine clinic here used its share of the grant to extend the hours of its lone doctor. Counselors reached out to people on the waiting list, moving active needle-users like Mr. Kenney and pregnant women to the top. (Seelye, 2/25)