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Missouri and Montana are the only states without distracted driving laws for all drivers. With traffic fatalities rising significantly nationwide, some Missouri lawmakers and advocates for roadway safety are eyeing bills in the new legislative session that would crack down on texting while driving in the Show Me State.
Private equity groups are cashing in on rising rates of alcohol and drug addiction in the U.S. But they aren’t necessarily investing in centers with the best treatment standards, and they often cut extra services.
Many health professionals in rural areas don’t know how to provide gender-affirming care, leaving transgender patients with few options.
Noise pollution is a growing problem that isn’t confined to the ears: It can cause harm throughout the body. California is taking baby steps to address the increasing din from traffic and illegally modified cars, but public health experts urge lawmakers to act more boldly.
Some insurers and employers are tapping into assistance programs meant for individual patients. The concern: Some costly drugs could be harder for patients to access.
With a dearth of evidence on effective treatments for long covid, patients and doctors in 400 clinics around the country still rely on trial and error.
Low-income residents in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid are in a tough spot: They don’t qualify for the subsidies that people with slightly higher incomes get to buy marketplace plans because of a glitch in the federal health law. But a court decision last year makes it easier for them to make good-faith estimates of a pay increase, and there is no financial penalty if they don’t hit that figure.
Many Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities do not have long-term plans for when family members can no longer care for them. Families, researchers, and advocates worry that has set the stage for a crisis in which people with disabilities could end up living in institutional settings.
Even some medical experts who are skeptical of gender-affirming care say the White House is not promoting breast removal and genital surgery for teens. But that’s not what an ad, funded by a group led by a former adviser to President Donald Trump, would have you believe.
The nation’s largest private health system, HCA Healthcare, has faced years of scrutiny over its share of emergency room patients who are admitted to the hospital. And now U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey, is calling for a federal investigation, prompting an escalating defense by the hospital system, based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Despite the end of Jim Crow segregation, its legacy lives on in medical debt that disproportionately burdens Black communities.
The cheaper over-the-counter aids are for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss — a market of tens of millions of people, many of whom have until now been priced out because prescription devices can cost thousands of dollars.
After a unanimous ruling from the high court, doctors who are accused of writing irresponsible prescriptions can go to trial with a new defense: It wasn’t on purpose.
Coming out of the pandemic, many rural hospitals are in even rougher shape than before. So rough that some are now practically being handed to investors for little more than a pledge to keep them open.
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.
Tennessee expects to soon disenroll about 300,000 people from its Medicaid program. But families like the Lesters have suffered when bureaucracy and clerical mistakes caused them to unfairly lose coverage under the same program.
Music festival promoters are allowing distribution of overdose reversal medication as fentanyl deaths continue to surge. But nonprofits and volunteers are often left to do the work, and more controversial forms of harm reduction aren’t openly allowed.
More than two years into the pandemic, parents face a child care crisis. That’s why some hospitals are considering starting child care centers to address recruitment and retention troubles.
A network of organizations help women use medication to end early pregnancies safely. But it’s a legal gray area in Tennessee and other states that restrict abortion.
By undoing that landmark decision, the law of the land since 1973, the court has empowered states to set their own abortion restrictions — so where people live will determine their level of access.
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