News
Collaborating with KFF Health News with focus on Medicaid, Medicare, Rural & Public Health
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Insurers Fight State Laws Restricting Surprise Ambulance Bills
Posted on July 09, 2025
Nicole Silva’s 4-year-old daughter was headed to a relative’s house near the southern Colorado town of La Jara when a vehicle T-boned the car she was riding in. A cascade of ambulance rides ensued — a ground ambulance to a local hospital, an air ambulance to Denver, and another ground ambulance to Children’s Hospital Colorado.
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Republican Megabill Will Mean Higher Health Costs for Many Americans
Posted on July 03, 2025
The tax and spending legislation the House voted to send to President Donald Trump’s desk on Thursday, enacting much of his domestic agenda, cuts federal health spending by about $1 trillion over a decade in ways that will jeopardize the physical and financial health of tens of millions of Americans.
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GOP Governors Mum as Congress Moves To Slash Medicaid Spending for Their States
Posted on July 03, 2025
The last time a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump moved to slash Medicaid spending, in 2017, a key political force stood in their way: GOP governors.
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To Keep Medicaid, Mom Caring for Disabled Adult Son Faces Prospect of Proving She Works
Posted on July 03, 2025
Four years before Kimberly Gallagher enrolled in Medicaid herself, the public health insurance program’s rules prompted her to make an excruciating choice — to give up guardianship of her son so she could work as his caregiver.
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Too Sick To Work, Some Americans Worry New Bill Will Strip Their Health Insurance
Posted on June 27, 2025
Stephanie Ivory counts on Medicaid to get treated for gastrointestinal conditions and a bulging disc that makes standing or sitting for long periods painful. Her disabilities keep her from working, she said.
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Thune Says Health Care Often ‘Comes With a Job.’ The Reality’s Not Simple or Straightforward.
Posted on June 27, 2025
“A lot of times, health care comes with a job.” - Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), in an interview with KOTA on May 30, 2025
Millions of people are expected to lose access to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance plans if federal lawmakers approve the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Donald Trump’s domestic policy package, which is now moving through the Senate.
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Live From Aspen — Governors and an HHS Secretary Sound Off
Posted on June 26, 2025
It’s not exactly news that our nation’s health care system is only a “system” in the most generous sense of the word and that no one entity is really in charge of it.
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Many Older People Embrace Vaccines. Research Is Proving Them Right.
Posted on June 23, 2025
Kim Beckham, an insurance agent in Victoria, Texas, had seen friends suffer so badly from shingles that she wanted to receive the first approved shingles vaccine as soon as it became available, even if she had to pay for it out-of-pocket.
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Federal Proposals Threaten Provider Taxes, Key Source of Medicaid Funding for States
Posted on June 23, 2025
Republican efforts to restrict taxes on hospitals, health plans, and other providers that states use to help fund their Medicaid programs could strip them of tens of billions of dollars. The move could shrink access to health care for some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable people, warn analysts, patient advocates, and Democratic political leaders.
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With Property Seized and Federal Funding Uncertain, Montana Asbestos Clinic Fights for Its Life
Posted on June 20, 2025
LIBBY, Mont. — Dozens of feet of tubing connect Gayla Benefield to her oxygen machine so she can walk from room to room inside her home on the picturesque Kootenai River, surrounded by the Cabinet Mountains.