Tracking State Rural Health Transformation Plans
51ÊÓÆµ Health News is working to collect and post approved plans as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
51ÊÓÆµ Health News covers the health issues facing people who live in America’s rural reaches.
51ÊÓÆµ Health News is working to collect and post approved plans as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
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President Donald Trump called the Digital Equity Act unconstitutional, racist, and illegal. Then the $2.75 billion program for rural and underserved communities to gain internet access disappeared.
California’s nursing shortage is projected to worsen, and hospitals say funding cuts will only add strain. But front-line nurses blame heavy workloads, not a shortage, for driving workers away.
The Trump administration has restored promised funds to a program that teaches people in health care how to work with aging Americans.
People who maintained the nation’s land-based nuclear missile arsenal are coming down with similar cancers. The Air Force is wrapping up a large study of the health risks they may have faced.
Health care providers and debt collectors are biting from people’s paychecks to cover old medical bills. A 51ÊÓÆµ Health News investigation in Colorado shows that this aggressive collection practice is widespread even in a state considered to have strong consumer protections.
Barbara Kingsolver won a Pulitzer Prize for her bestselling novel about Appalachia’s drug crisis. She invested some of the proceeds into a home for women trying to beat substance use disorders.
As a warming climate intensifies storms, 51ÊÓÆµ Health News has identified more than 170 U.S. hospitals at risk of significant and potentially dangerous flooding. Climate experts warn that the Trump administration’s cuts leave the nation less prepared.
As the climate changes, hurricanes are intensifying more quickly, leaving Louisiana’s current mass evacuation plan in limbo. But transportation officials say the price is too high to switch to methods used in Florida and Texas.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
Despite billions of tax dollars and two decades of effort invested in improving health care data sharing, Americans’ medical records often remain siloed, leading to duplicate testing, increased costs, and wasted time for patients and doctors.
North Carolina and Idaho are cutting their Medicaid programs to bridge budget gaps, raising fears that providers will stop taking patients and that hospitals will close even before the brunt of a new federal tax-and-budget law takes effect.
Doctors need to know when to screen for tick-borne diseases in their communities. But it’s getting harder for local health departments to get funding for tick surveys as federal public health grants from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dry up.
In a rural, largely Republican region of California, homegrown efforts to bolster the medical workforce face an uphill battle, in part because of federal health care cuts approved by the GOP Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in July, as well as a state budget deficit.
In South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, many people go without health insurance, and the health system struggles as a result. Similar communities dot the nation, and more could face such difficulties under President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spending law.
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Independent and rural hospitals are collaborating with their neighbors to shore up their finances instead of joining larger health systems to stay afloat.
As extremism and radicalization worsen in the United States, a group of researchers is trying out a new approach that addresses the issue as a public health problem.
In a survey by the National Funeral Directors Association, more than 60% of respondents said they would be interested in exploring green and natural burial alternatives.
Four pediatricians said evidence-based science and medicine and a desire to keep kids healthy drive doctors’ childhood vaccination recommendations. And while pediatric practices might make money immunizing privately insured children, most practices likely break even or lose money from providing the shots.
The Trump administration's cuts of public health funds to state and local health departments had vastly uneven effects depending on the political leanings of where someone lives, a new 51ÊÓÆµ Health News analysis shows.
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