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Coverage for hundreds of thousands of Arkansas Medicaid enrollees next year is in question after the Trump administration refused to renew a key state waiver. The state might not be the last to have to adjust to an arcane rule change under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Hospitals and other medical providers are increasingly asking for payment before providing care, collecting more of what patients might owe as rising insurance deductibles add to Americans' financial pressures.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News is working to collect and post approved plans as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
āGovernment has to intervene, because healthcare is run like an unregulated utility,ā Indianaās GOP governor says of the stateās effort to regulate hospital prices.
To collect and scrutinize millions of Americansā health data, U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to work with state organizations that help health systems share medical records. In Nebraska, millions in federal dollars has flowed into one nonprofit cooperating with Kennedyās project.
Congress' decision not to extend enhanced marketplace tax credits has boosted the appeal of alternative health coverage with lower monthly premiums. Consumer advocates dismiss the plans as "junk insurance,ā while proponents say patients need alternatives to pricey marketplace options.
Several states have required their health agencies to take on another job: verifying immigration status among Medicaid recipients and reporting them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. North Carolina is the latest to pass such a law, and experts expect more to follow.
A KFF survey of state Medicaid officials offers insight into lingering uncertainty and differing plans for work requirement implementation as the Jan. 1 deadline approaches.
A $50 billion federal fund is supposed to modernize rural health with electronic health records, AI, telehealth, and more. But community clinics and rural health advocates fear that the contractors administering the money for states will bite off a big chunk before it reaches rural patients.
Starting next year, about 18.5 million adults will be subject to new Medicaid work rules in 42 states and Washington, D.C. Applicants must show theyāve been working for at least a month before receiving benefits. Some Republican-controlled states want to triple the required work period.
Behind their warm-and-fuzzy marketing, infant formula industry giants Abbott, maker of Similac products, and Mead Johnson, maker of the Enfamil line, have turned neonatal intensive care units into arenas of brutal competition.
Florida is not mandated to add work requirements for Medicaid, because the state has not expanded eligibility to more low-income adults. But lawmakers have proposed requiring some adults in the stateās program to work anyway, a policy that could leave many uninsured.
Congress and the Trump administration are rolling back some lead remediation resources. Case studies of two cities and a state that faced lead contamination problems could give cash-strapped cities ideas of how to address such pollution themselves.
At least eight states are considering legislation to curtail wage garnishment over unpaid medical bills, as health care costs rise and more people become underinsured.
States facing yawning budget shortfalls have begun cutting Medicaid reimbursements for a wide variety of services. In some states, dramatic cuts are targeting therapies that many families of autistic people say are essential to caring for their loved ones.
Federal officials reversed their stance on medical debt credit reporting, then came a lawsuit in Colorado. As lawmakers in other states forge ahead with attempts to protect consumers from medical debt, some are reconsidering how they go about it.
People on Medicaid deemed āmedically frailā wonāt need to meet new federal requirements that enrollees work 80 hours a month or perform another approved activity. But state officials are grappling with how to interpret who qualifies under the vague federal definition, which could affect millions.
Local governments have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the opioid settlements to support addiction treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts. Their spending decisions in 2024 were sometimes surprising and even controversial. Our new database offers more than 10,500 examples.
KFF data shows that 2025 marked the first time in two decades that the annual cost of covering a family of four rose by 6% or more for three consecutive years.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
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