California’s ‘Care Courts’ Are Falling Short
California’s controversial experiment to order mental illness and drug treatment for some of its sickest residents is rolling out statewide, but the latest data shows the new initiative is falling far short of early objectives. The Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Act — known as Care — recently expanded from 11 pilot counties to all…
Georgia Said It Would Fix Care for the Disabled Years Ago. It’s Still Not Done.
In recent decades, the Justice Department has sued several states for unnecessarily confining people with disabilities in places such as state psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and segregated workspaces. Such treatment violates a key part of the Americans With Disabilities Act — as affirmed in the 1999 Olmstead decision from the Supreme Court: that people with…
Efforts To Curb ACA Enrollment Fraud Face Real-World Test
The current Affordable Care Act open enrollment season is the first big test of new federal guardrails against fraud. The rules aim to head off unauthorized ACA plan enrollments or switches by rogue agents and entities looking to make money via enrollment commissions. Such sign-ups triggered more than 274,000 consumer complaints through August this year.…
Your Next Hospital Stay Could Involve Fewer IV Fluid Bags. Here’s Why.
When Hurricane Helene struck in late September, it flooded the largest IV fluid factory in the United States. The Baxter International facility in western North Carolina had been producing 1.5 million IV bags a day, sent ripples through the health-care industry. IV saline and fluids with carbohydrates are used regularly in hospitals and other clinical…
Federal Watchdog Urges Crackdown on Medicare Advantage Home Visits
Medicare officials are pushing back against a federal watchdog’s call to crack down on home visits by Medicare Advantage health plans — a practice the watchdog says may waste billions of tax dollars every year. In late October, a Health and Human Services inspector general audit found that the insurers pocketed $7.5 billion in 2023 from diagnosing health conditions that…
Nearly All Vermonters Have Health Insurance, but Care Is Tough To Find
Almost all people have health insurance in Vermont, a state famed for its maple syrup and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, yet residents pay the nation’s highest insurance premiums for individual coverage and endure months-long waits for care — and most hospitals here are losing money, according to state reports and interviews with residents and…
Tribal Leaders Ask Feds To Declare Syphilis Outbreak a Public Health Emergency
For Native American communities in the Great Plains, data paints a clear picture of the devastation caused by an ongoing syphilis outbreak. According to the South Dakota Department of Health, 649 cases of syphilis have been documented this year. Of those, 546 were diagnosed among Native Americans, who make up only 9 percent of the…
Voters in These Red States Okay Paid Sick Leave
Voters in Missouri and Nebraska approved ballot measures Tuesday that guarantee paid leave for sick workers. Alaska voters seem poised to pass a similar measure that has a wide lead. These two Republican-led states join 15 others and D.C. — largely Democratic-controlled places — in requiring some employers to provide workers with paid sick leave. Proponents cheered…
7 of 10 States Backed Abortion Rights, but Don’t Expect Change Overnight
Voters backed abortion rights in seven of the 10 states where the issue appeared on ballots Tuesday, including in Missouri, among the first states to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. At first glance, the nation’s patchwork of abortion…
A Rules Change Would Open the ACA to ‘Dreamers’
It’s that time of year again: open enrollment for Affordable Care Act insurance — a period that runs from tomorrow to Jan. 15 in most states, a bit longer in some, and shorter in Idaho. One of the biggest changes this time around: a new rule from the Biden administration that opens enrollment to Deferred…