Community Health Systems, a large, for profit hospital chain, shrank from more than 200 to 84 facilities. It is continuing to sue patients for hospitals that now exist as little more than legal entities.
Restrictive abortion regulations enacted across the South require women to drive across state lines to find safe services. With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear a challenge to Roe v. Wade, abortion rights defenders say long drives and wait times could become the norm across much of America.
The summer that promised to let Americans resume a relatively normal life is turning into another summer of anxiety and face masks, as the delta variant drives covid caseloads up in all 50 states. Meanwhile, the Americans with Disabilities Act turns 35, and the Missouri Supreme Court orders the state to expand Medicaid after all. Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Samantha Young, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode about an Olympic-level athlete with an Olympic-size medical bill.
Vermont and Massachusetts lead the nation, with more than 70% of adults having had at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. Southern states like Tennessee lag far behind.
Some immigrant groups are closing the ethnic gap on COVID-19 shots. For many Kurdish Americans, their fears about vaccination are entangled with their experiences in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq.
Hospitalizations are down 62% for childhood respiratory illnesses, a study shows. Masking and social distancing are keeping a variety of viruses in check this flu season.
As the speed of covid vaccinations picks up, so do the reports of doses going to waste. Health officials are trying to rein in waste without slowing down vaccinations.
Inoculating the millions of undocumented workers who produce America’s agricultural bounty will be key to achieving herd immunity against covid-19. But garnering the trust of these workers is proving complicated, particularly in the South, where the last four years have been marked by workplace raids and anti-immigrant vitriol.
Community health clinics are key to getting more Black and Hispanic Americans vaccinated, federal officials say. In Nashville, a vaccination push at federally funded clinics is underway.
In most Tennessean counties, residents currently eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine are health care workers, long-term care residents and people 75 and older. But don’t expect strict enforcement.