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With much of their lives spent in the COVID-19 pandemic, families and health experts in Greater Columbus and across the United States have noticed a sharp increase in very young children with speech and hearing issues. In 12 central Ohio neighborhoods, 52% of children ages 3 to 5 who were tested by the group nonprofit Columbus Speech and Hearing failed their speech-language screenings, and 40% failed their hearing tests in 2021. Before the pandemic, 27% of children overall tested failed their speech-language assessments and 21% failed their hearing screenings in 2019. (Wright, 3/25)

North Carolina jails saw a record number of deaths due to suicide or substance use in 2020, according to a new report from Disability Rights North Carolina (DRNC). There were a record number of 56 deaths in North Carolina jails in 2020, despite estimates that nationwide lockups reduced their populations by a quarter in just months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the report found. Of those deaths, 32 were due to suicide or related to substance use, an increase from previous years. By comparison, there were 30 people who died from suicide or substance use in the state’s jails in 2019 and 22 in 2018. (Thompson, 3/25)

Pointed questions arose about drastically low staffing and apparent failure to plan by Kinston-based Principle Long Term Care after its facility Pine Ridge Health and Rehabilitation faced a crisis on the icy night of Jan. 16. By the time local EMS and government officials showed up, two residents had died at the Thomasville home and nearly a hundred were left in the care of one nurse and two assistants instead of the 13 to 15 who should have been providing care. (Goldsmith and Hoban, 3/23)

Authorities in Virginia on Thursday were still trying to piece together what happened and whether any adults will face criminal charges after seven children took prescription medicine and ended up in the hospital. Police in Hopewell, a small city about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Richmond, said they were called to a home late Wednesday afternoon, where they found four small children unresponsive. Three more children found in another part of the house were awake, but lethargic. The children ranged between the ages of 1 and 7. Lt. Cheyenne Casale said police believe a 7-year-old boy took medication he had been prescribed for anxiety, then gave some to the other children. (3/24)

It’s been called the “Pedophilia Protection Act,” guided by the World Health Organization and a measure that threatens to “take our guns.” The issue? Crime? Gun control? COVID-19? None of the above. The comments have come in reaction to a bipartisan effort to expand the way mental health is covered in Georgia. In the two weeks since House Bill 1013 was approved by that chamber, the overwhelming support heard in committee meetings and on the House floor has given way to a growing chorus of opponents who believe the legislation will allow pedophiles to avoid prison and deny Georgians their right to bear arms. “There’s only recently been this kind of mass attack on the bill that comes from a very small internet activation,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Decatur Democrat. (Prabhu, 3/24)

Florida fined its largest Medicaid payment vendor nearly $9.1 million over software problems that delayed payments for nearly three months for tens of thousands of health-care claims for the state's sickest and neediest children, the government’s health regulator said Wednesday. In a letter to the CEO of Sunshine State Health Plan Inc. of Tampa, the Agency for Health Care Administration also demanded detailed explanations for how the problems occurred and how the company responded. It also required the company to demonstrate within 30 days that future claims were being paid promptly and asked for weekly updates in phone calls with the CEO, Nathan Landsbaum, or another senior executive. (Bausch, 3/24)

Michigan insurers that require health providers to get pre-approval to cover treatment would have to promptly respond to doctors’ requests or those requests would be automatically granted under a bill headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her expected signature. The legislation received final, unanimous Senate approval on Thursday. (Eggert, 3/24)

The family of a boy whose brain was severely injured during birth at an Iowa City hospital has been awarded $97.4 million — believed to be the largest medical malpractice verdict in Iowa’s history. A Johnson County handed down the award on Monday following a 14-day trial, the Des Moines Register reported. It came in a lawsuit filed by Kathleen and Andrew Kromphardt against Mercy Hospital Iowa City and an obstetrician. (3/24)

KHN: Montana Is Sending Troubled Kids To Out-Of-State Programs That Have Been Accused Of Abuse

The high demand for treatment for children with behavioral and substance abuse problems has led Montana health officials to spend Medicaid funds to send kids, including those who are foster children and wards of the state, to residential programs in other states with less stringent oversight. Some of those children have been sent to out-of-state programs that have been accused of abuse and mistreatment, according to documents from state agencies and media reports. (Evans, 3/25)

In mid-December, a woman in her early 40s with severe abdominal pain and unexplained weight loss was referred to a gastroenterologist at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The specialist said she would have to wait two and a half months for an appointment. Then she learned she’d have to wait another two and a half months for an MRI scan of her intestines. And four months for a colonoscopy. The news was frustrating but not a shock— the county hospital system had recently kept her waiting two years for a mammogram, she said. Her experience mirrors those of thousands of other patients who for years have faced delays to see specialists at Los Angeles’ county-run hospitals — waits that have cost some patients their lives. (Dolan and Mejia, 3/24)

Emily Bender still gets medical bills she can’t afford to pay. They arrive every few months. Some are for the miscarriage she suffered more than a decade ago, others for emergency care related to her high blood pressure. All told, she owes as much as $5,000 for medical treatment she received years ago. For Bender, who lived without health insurance for years as a young mom in East Price Hill, those costs remain a burden even as she approaches middle age. The weight of them affects her most basic decisions, from the money she spends on food to the clothes she buys her children to the apartment she rents. (Horn, 3/24)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The ACA Turns 12

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, turned 12 this week, in spite of efforts to repeal it through both legislation and court action over much of its lifetime. But key decisions facing federal and state lawmakers and the Biden administration in the coming year will say a lot about how many Americans the law ultimately benefits, and how much it will benefit them. (3/24)