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In most states, people with Medicaid coverage will have to prove they’re working, volunteering, or studying starting Jan. 1. But Montana put the rules into effect early, and they’re sowing uncertainty and anxiety.
States are spending rural health dollars on tech startups, betting that untested companies will succeed where doctors have vanished and hospitals have collapsed. Louisiana’s call for innovative technology drew more than 200 pitches, seeking from $250,000 to $3 million in seed money.
As state governments grapple with how to determine who’s sick enough to be excused from new Medicaid work requirements, some families are already struggling with what illnesses guarantee health coverage because of a disability.
States must submit Rural Health Transformation Program progress reports to the federal government, but they aren’t required to proactively post those reports, or related information, publicly.
Special Medicaid programs in many states allow disabled people to work while receiving benefits, and most limit how much participants can earn and the assets they can hold. Some Iowans are pushing lawmakers to remove those limits, which they say can dampen their career prospects.
The $50 billion federal Rural Health Transformation Program is set to flood rural America with new AI health tools. That’s despite little evidence on whether health-related AI can improve access to care and patient health in those communities.
Conservatives who have long pushed for Medicaid work requirements often said vulnerable people would get a pass. But the federal government’s list of exemptions left off homeless people.
51ÊÓƵ Health News is working to collect and post approved plans as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
Last year, the Trump administration announced a voluntary pledge by dozens of insurers to improve prior authorization, which often requires patients to seek approval before treatments. But prior authorization remains commonplace, and there's no evidence the government is trying to hold insurers to account.
Over the past 70 years, the number of inpatient psychiatric beds has dropped dramatically, leaving many without critical care when they experience mental health crises. I was one of the lucky ones to get a bed — after 21 hours of waiting.
51ÊÓƵ Health News journalists made the rounds on national media last week to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The Trump administration has laid out what millions of Americans on Medicaid must do to prove they’re working or completing other activities. Health policy researchers and consumer advocates say there are some important takeaways.
To collect and scrutinize millions of Americans’ 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 Kennedy’s project.
Health experts and advocates for low-income people say federal rules implementing President Donald Trump’s new Medicaid work requirements upend months of work by state governments to prepare the computer systems that determine who’s eligible for benefits.
Some states bar professional midwives from attending home births if they don’t have a nursing license. Their advocates say laws to allow midwife licensing would make home birth safer and more accessible, plus help address a maternity care shortage.
A 51ÊÓƵ survey of state Medicaid officials offers insight into lingering uncertainty and differing plans for work requirement implementation as the Jan. 1 deadline approaches.
On May 1, the state will become the first to require people on the government health program to fulfill a work requirement or lose their coverage under a new rule that was a key part of congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
A rural Nebraska dialysis unit that was hemorrhaging money closed, upending patients’ lives. That’s despite a federal rural health program that granted the state more than $200 million this year to improve health care in rural communities.
About 17,000 federally funded health clinics stand to collectively lose $32 billion under GOP-backed fiscal policies in the next five years — just as more uninsured patients will rely on them for low-cost care.
Behind their warm-and-fuzzy marketing, infant 51ÊÓƵ 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.
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