Hospitals Cut Jobs and Services as Rising Costs Strain Budgets
More than two years into the pandemic, hospital budgets are beginning to crack. One of the biggest drivers of financial shortfalls has been the cost to find workers.
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More than two years into the pandemic, hospital budgets are beginning to crack. One of the biggest drivers of financial shortfalls has been the cost to find workers.
Nonprofit federally funded health centers are a linchpin in the nation鈥檚 health care safety net because they treat the medically underserved. The average profit margin is 5%, but some have recorded margins of 20% or more in three of the past four years.
The community of Bristol straddles the border between two states with very different abortion laws. Tennessee prohibits most abortions at about six weeks and will soon ban them nearly outright. Virginia allows them at least through the second trimester. To maintain abortion access in the area, staff at a clinic on the Tennessee side of the state line are helping open a clinic about a mile down the road on the Virginia side.
Most prenatal genetic tests aren鈥檛 performed until after 11 weeks鈥 gestation, and the time between drawing a sample and getting results may be additional weeks. But new abortion restrictions prevent parents from choosing an abortion when they find out their child has a genetic disease, and make the already difficult decision for them.
By undoing that landmark decision, the law of the land since 1973, the court has empowered states to set their own abortion restrictions 鈥 so where people live will determine their level of access.
Most of the dozen states that haven鈥檛 fully expanded eligibility for Medicaid have extended or plan to extend the postpartum coverage window for new mothers. That could mean improved maternal health, but it鈥檚 only part of the puzzle when it comes to reducing the number of preventable maternal deaths in the U.S.
For many women, abortion access has also meant better economic opportunities. But that could change in states that plan to ban most abortion access if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. And those constraints could have a big impact on Black women. In Tennessee, Black women have abortions at more than four times the rate of white women.
Research has long shown that doctors are less likely to respect patients who are overweight or obese 鈥 terms that now apply to nearly three-quarters of adults in the U.S. The Association of American Medical Colleges plans to roll out new diversity, equity, and inclusion standards aimed at teaching doctors, among other things, how to treat patients who are overweight with respect.
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.
Covid cases are again climbing, but you wouldn鈥檛 know it from the behavior of public health and elected officials, much less the general public, all of whom seem to want to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, the fallout over the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion continues even as the Senate fails 鈥 again 鈥 to muster the votes to write abortion rights into law. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
If the Supreme Court affirms the leaked draft decision and overturns abortion rights, the effects would be sweeping in states where Republican-led legislatures have been eagerly awaiting the repudiation of a woman鈥檚 right to terminate a pregnancy.
An opinion published by Politico confirms what many who have followed the abortion debate already suspected: Roe v. Wade is soon to be no more. But the question remains: How will the public respond?
Conservative-leaning states and nonprofit reproductive health care providers are competing over control of states鈥 Title X funding for family planning programs.
Some U.S. states have reduced use of the procedure, including by sharing C-section data with doctors and hospitals. But change has proved difficult in the South, where women are generally less healthy heading into their pregnancies and maternal and infant health problems are among the highest in the U.S.
President Joe Biden welcomed former President Barack Obama back to the White House this week to announce a new policy for the Affordable Care Act that would make subsidies available to more families with unaffordable employer coverage. Meanwhile, Congress struggled to find a compromise for continued federal funding of covid-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments. Tami Luhby of CNN, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
Some doctors are getting licensed in multiple states so they can use telemedicine and mail-order pharmacies to provide medication abortions to more women. At the same time, states are cracking down on telemedicine abortions, blunting the efforts of out-of-state doctors.
At least 7 million immunocompromised people could benefit from the monoclonal antibody injections designed to prevent covid-19. The government says it has enough doses for a fraction of those in need 鈥 and it doesn鈥檛 have the money to buy more.
Conservative lawmakers may find their anti-abortion agendas complicated by state constitutions that explicitly grant citizens the right to privacy, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.
The omicron variant upended a system in which states shared rapid covid tests with those that needed them more. Cooperation has turned into competition as states run out of supplies, limit which organizations get them, or hold on to expired kits as a last resort.
The top 12 states using antibody therapies produced by Regeneron and Lilly 鈥 which research shows don鈥檛 work against the omicron variant 鈥 include several Southern states with some of the nation鈥檚 lowest vaccination rates, but also California, which ranks among the top 20 for fully vaccinated residents.
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