With Funds Frozen, Minnesota Sweeps Medicaid Providers For Signs Of Fraud
Inspectors aren't finding evidence of widespread fraud, state Medicaid director John Connolly said, adding the revalidation process of more than 5,000 providers should be completed by the end of May. Plus: Louisiana's anti-abortion effort; punitive damages in an infant formula case; and more.
State of Minnesota officials said they are making progress in their effort to revalidate nearly 5,600 medical care providers across the state amid federal accusations of widespread fraud in the program that provides health insurance coverage to low income residents. (Ratanpal, 4/10)
More health news from across the U.S. —
A resolution urging the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to incorporate content standards that include prenatal development into statewide school curriculum is scheduled for debate in the Louisiana House of Representatives on Monday (April 13). Critics say that the resolution mirrors efforts in other Republican-led states to introduce anti-abortion material into public school curriculum. (Syed, 4/10)
A Cook County jury on Friday decided that Abbott Laboratories should pay $17 million in punitive damages — on top of $53 million in compensatory damages awarded a day earlier — in four cases in which mothers alleged the company’s formula for premature infants caused their babies to become severely ill. (Schencker, 4/10)
Surveillance data first detected the sedative medetomidine in New York state in mid-2024, and through 2025 it was identified in 25.1% of opioid samples analyzed, with a monthly peak of 44.1% in May 2025, according to a Public Health Alerts report published today. (Wappes, 4/10)
Sara Mearns was missing her cues. She couldn’t hear what her dance partner was saying from across the studio. She was late for her entrances because the music sounded too soft. Without telling anyone, she finally made an appointment to get her hearing checked. Mearns learned that she had hearing loss. After years of isolation, she got the tools to make sense of a world that had gotten muffled. (Ramakrishnan and Lum, 4/12)
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Pennsylvania Town Faces Fallout From Trump’s Environmental Rule Rollback
North America’s largest coke plant hugs the west bank of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River, belching out emissions from turning superheated coal into a carbon-rich fuel. Researchers say the children at Clairton Elementary School about a mile away pay the price. They discovered the students there and at other elementary schools near major pollution sites in Pennsylvania had higher asthma rates than other children in the state. (Armour and Rosenfeld, 4/13)
