Kaiser Health News

Prescription for Housing? California Wants Medicaid to Cover 6 Months of Rent

Published

1 year ago

March 24, 2023

by Angela Hart
Wed, 22 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration is struggling to contain a worsening homelessness crisis despite record spending, is trying something bold: tapping federal health care funding to cover rent for homeless people and those at risk of losing their housing.

States are barred from using federal Medicaid dollars to pay directly for rent, but California's governor is asking the administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, to authorize a new program called “transitional rent,” which would provide up to six months of rent or temporary housing for low-income enrollees who rely on the state's health care safety net — a new initiative in his arsenal of programs to fight and prevent homelessness.

“I've been talking to the president. We cannot do this alone,” Newsom told KHN.

The governor is pushing California's version of Medicaid, called Medi-Cal, to fund experimental housing subsidies for homeless people, betting that it's cheaper for taxpayers to cover rent than to allow people to fall into crisis or costly institutional care in hospitals, nursing homes, and jails. Early in his tenure, Newsom proclaimed that “doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin or antibiotics.”

But it's a risky endeavor in a high-cost state where median rent is nearly $3,000 a month, and even higher in coastal regions, where most of California's homeless people reside. Experts expect the Biden administration to scrutinize the plan to use health care money to pay rent; and also question its potential effectiveness in light of the state's housing crisis.

“Part of the question is whether this is really Medicaid's job,” said Vikki Wachino, who served as national Medicaid director in the Obama administration. “But there is a recognition that social factors like inadequate housing are driving health outcomes, and I think the federal government is open to developing approaches to try and address that.”

Bruce Alexander, a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, declined to say whether the federal government would approve California's request. Yet, Biden's Medicaid officials have approved similar experimental programs in Oregon and Arizona, and California is modeling its program after them.

California is home to an estimated 30% of the homeless people in the U.S., despite representing just 12% of the country's overall population. And Newsom has acknowledged that the numbers are likely far greater than official homeless tallies show. Top health officials say that, to contain soaring safety-net spending and help homeless people get healthy, Medi-Cal has no choice but to combine social services with housing.

Statewide, 5% of Medi-Cal patients account for a staggering 44% of the program's spending, according to state data. And many of the costliest patients lack stable housing: Nearly half of patients experiencing homelessness visited the emergency room four times or more in 2019 and were more likely than other low-income adults to be admitted to the hospital, and a large majority of visits were covered by Medi-Cal, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

“What we have today doesn't work,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, explaining his argument that housing is a critical component of health care. “Why do we have to wait so long for people to be so sick?”

The federal government has already approved a massive social experiment in California, known as CalAIM, which is transforming Medi-Cal. Over five years, the initiative is expected to pour $12 billion into new Medi-Cal services delivered outside of traditional health care. In communities across the state, it is already funding services for some low-income patients, including paying rental security deposits for homeless people and those facing eviction; delivering prepared healthy meals for people with diabetes; and helping formerly incarcerated people find jobs.

The transitional rent program would add another service to those already available, though only a sliver of the 15.4 million Medi-Cal enrollees actually receive those new and expensive social services.

Rent payments could begin as soon as 2025 and cost roughly $117 million per year once fully implemented. And while state officials say anyone who is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless would be eligible, not everyone who qualifies will receive new services due to capacity limits. Among those who stand to benefit are nearly 11,000 people already enrolled in Medi-Cal housing services.

“The ongoing conversation is how do we convince the federal government that housing is a health care issue,” said Mari Cantwell, who served as Medi-Cal director from 2015 to 2020. “You have to convince them that you're going to save money because you're not going to have as many people showing up at the emergency room and in long-term hospitalizations.”

Health care experiments in California and around the country that funded housing supports have demonstrated early success in reducing costs and making people healthier. But while some programs paid for housing security deposits or participants' first month of rent, none directly covered rent for an extended period.

“Without that foundational support, we are playing in the margins,” Newsom said.

State health officials argue that paying for six months of rent will be even more successful at reducing health care costs and improving enrollees' health, but experts say that, to work, the initiative must have strict accountability and be bundled with an array of social services.

In a precursor to the state's current initiative, California experimented with a mix of housing assistance programs and social services through its “Whole Person Care” pilot program. Nadereh Pourat, of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, evaluated the program for the state concluding that local trials reduced emergency visits and hospitalizations, saving an average of $383 per Medi-Cal beneficiary per year — a meager amount compared with the program's cost.

Over five years, the state spent $3.6 billion serving about 250,000 patients enrolled in local experiments, Pourat said.

And a randomized control trial in Santa Clara County that provided supportive housing for homeless people showed reductions in psychiatric emergency room visits and improvements in care. “Lives stabilized and we saw a huge uptick in substance use care and mental health care, the things that everybody wants people to use to get healthier,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the University of California-San Francisco's Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, who worked on the study.

But insurers implementing the broader Medi-Cal initiative say they are skeptical that spending health care money on housing will save the system money. And health care experts say that, while six months of rent can be a bridge while people wait for permanent housing, there's a bigger obstacle: California's affordable housing shortage.

“We can design incredible Medicaid policies to alleviate homelessness and pay for all the necessary supportive services, but without the adequate housing, frankly, it's not going to work,” Kushel said.

Newsom acknowledges that criticism. “The crisis of homelessness will never be solved without first solving the crisis of housing,” he said last week, arguing California should plow more money into housing for homeless people with severe mental health conditions or addiction disorders.

He will ask the legislature to put before voters a 2024 ballot initiative that would infuse California's mental health system with at least 6,000 new treatment beds and supportive housing units for people struggling with mental health and addiction disorders, many of whom are homeless. The proposed bond measure would generate from $3 billion to $5 billion for psychiatric housing and treatment villages aimed at serving more than 10,000 additional people a year. The initiative also would ask voters to set aside at least $1 billion a year for supportive housing from an existing tax on California millionaires that funds local mental health programs.

“People who are struggling with these issues, especially those who are on the streets or in other vulnerable conditions, will have more resources to get the help they need,” Newsom said.

For transitional rent, six months of payments would be available for select high-need residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, particularly those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless — and those transitioning from more costly institutions such as mental health crisis centers, jails and prisons, and foster care. Medi-Cal patients at risk of inpatient hospitalization or who frequent the emergency room would also be eligible.

“It's a pretty big challenge; I'm not going to lie,” said Jacey Cooper, the Medi-Cal director. “But we know that people experiencing homelessness cycle in and out of emergency rooms, so we have a real role to play in both preventing and ending homelessness.”

Public health experts say the problem will continue to explode without creative thinking about how to fund housing in health care, but they warn the state must be wary of potential abuses of the program.

“It has to be designed carefully because, unfortunately, there are always people looking to game the system,” said Dr. Tony Iton, a public health expert who is now a senior vice president at the California Endowment. “Decisions must be made by clinicians — not housing organizations just looking for another source of revenue.”

For Stephen Morton, who lives in the Orange County community of Laguna Woods, the journey from homelessness into permanent housing illustrates the amount of public spending it can take for the effort to pay off.

Morton, 60, bounced between shelters and his car for nearly two years and racked up extraordinary Medi-Cal costs due to prolonged hospitalizations and repeated emergency room trips to treat chronic heart disease, asthma, and diabetes.

Medi-Cal covered Morton's open-heart surgery and hospital stays, which lasted weeks. He landed temporary housing through a state-sponsored program called Project Roomkey before getting permanent housing through a federal low-income housing voucher — an ongoing benefit that covers all but $50 of his rent.

Since getting his apartment, Morton said, he's been able to stop taking one diabetes medication and lose weight. He attributes improvements in his blood sugar levels to his housing and the healthy, home-delivered meals he receives via Medi-Cal.

“It's usually scrambled eggs for breakfast and the fish menu for dinner. I'm shocked it's so good,” Morton said. “Now I have a microwave and I'm indoors. I'm so grateful and so much healthier.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

By: Angela Hart
Title: Prescription for Housing? California Wants Medicaid to Cover 6 Months of Rent
Sourced From: khn.org/news/article/prescription-for-housing-california-wants-medicaid-to-cover-6-months-of-rent/
Published Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Post Views: 475

Related Topics:Featured gavinnewsom Health healthplans Kaiser Health News News

Up Next

End of Covid Emergency Will Usher in Changes Across the US Health System

Don't Miss

A Lot of Thought, Little Action: Proposals About Mental Health Go Unheeded

Kaiser Health News

Millions Were Booted From Medicaid. The Insurers That Run It Gained Medicaid Revenue Anyway.

Published

6 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Staff Editor

Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 13:55:00 +0000

Private Medicaid health plans lost millions of members in the past year as pandemic protections that prohibited states from dropping anyone from the government program expired.

But despite Medicaid's unwinding, as it's known, at least two of the five largest publicly traded companies selling plans have continued to increase revenue from the program, according to their latest earnings reports.

“It's a very interesting paradox,” said Andy Schneider, a research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, of plans' Medicaid revenue increasing despite enrollment drops.

Medicaid, the state-federal health program for low-income and disabled people, is administered by states. But most people enrolled in the program get their health care through insurers contracted by states, including UnitedHealthcare, Centene, and Molina.

The companies persuaded states to pay them more money per Medicaid enrollee under the assumption that younger and healthier people were dropping out — presumably for Obamacare coverage or employer-based health insurance, or because they didn't see the need to get coverage — leaving behind an older and sicker population to cover, their executives have told investors.

Several of the companies reported that states have made midyear and retrospective changes in their payments to plans to account for the worsening health status of members.

In an earnings call with analysts on April 25, Molina Healthcare CEO Joe Zubretsky said 19 states increased their payment rates this year to adjust for sicker Medicaid enrollees. “States have been very responsive,” Zubretsky said. “We couldn't be more pleased with the way our state customers have responded to having rates be commensurate with normal cost trends and trends that have been influenced by the acuity shift.”

Health plans have faced much uncertainty during the Medicaid unwinding, as states began reassessing enrollees' eligibility and dropping those deemed no longer qualified or who lost coverage because of procedural errors. Before the unwinding, plans said they expected the overall risk profile of their members to go up because those remaining in the program would be sicker.

UnitedHealthcare, Centene, and Molina had Medicaid revenue increases ranging from 3% to 18% in 2023, according to KFF. The two other large Medicaid insurers, Elevance and CVS Health, do not break out Medicaid-specific revenue.

The Medicaid enrollment of the five companies collectively declined by about 10% from the end of March 2023 through the end of December 2023, from 44.2 million people to 39.9 million, KFF data shows.

In the first quarter of 2024, UnitedHealth's Medicaid revenue rose to $20.5 billion, up from $18.8 billion in the same quarter of 2023.

Molina on April 24 reported nearly $7.5 billion in Medicaid revenue in the first quarter of 2024, up from $6.3 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.

On April 26, Centene reported that its Medicaid enrollment fell 18.5% to 13.3 million in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period a year ago. The company's Medicaid revenue dipped 3% to $22.2 billion.

Unlike UnitedHealthcare, whose Medicaid enrollment fell to 7.7 million in March 2024 from 8.4 million a year prior, Molina's Medicaid enrollment rose in the first quarter of 2024 to 5.1 million from 4.8 million in March 2023. Molina's enrollment jump last year was partly a result of its having bought a Medicaid plan in Wisconsin and gained a new Medicaid contract in Iowa, the company said in its earnings news release.

Molina added 1 million members because states were prohibited from terminating Medicaid coverage during the pandemic. The company has lost 550,000 of those people during the unwinding and expects to lose an additional 50,000 by June.

About 90% of Molina Medicaid members have gone through the redetermination process, Zubretsky said.

The corporate giants also offset the enrollment losses by getting more Medicaid money from states, which they use to pass on higher payments to certain facilities or providers, Schneider said. By holding the money temporarily, the companies can count these “directed payments” as revenue.

Medicaid health plans were big winners during the pandemic after the federal government prohibited states from dropping people from the program, leading to a surge in enrollment to about 93 million Americans.

States made efforts to limit health plans' profits by clawing back some payments above certain thresholds, said Elizabeth Hinton, an associate director at KFF.

But once the prohibition on dropping Medicaid enrollees was lifted last spring, the plans faced uncertainty. It was unclear how many people would lose coverage or when it would happen. Since the unwinding began, more than 20 million people have been dropped from the rolls.

Medicaid enrollees' health care costs were lower during the pandemic, and some states decided to exclude pandemic-era cost data as they considered how to set payment rates for 2024. That provided yet another win for the Medicaid health plans.

Most states are expected to complete their Medicaid unwinding processes this year.

——————————
By: Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News
Title: Millions Were Booted From Medicaid. The Insurers That Run It Gained Medicaid Revenue Anyway.
Sourced From: kffhealthnews.org/news/article/medicaid-unwinding-insurer-revenue/
Published Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2024 13:55:00 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/california-is-investing-500m-in-therapy-apps-for-youth-advocates-fear-it-wont-pay-off/

Post Views: 8

Kaiser Health News

California Is Investing $500M in Therapy Apps for Youth. Advocates Fear It Won’t Pay Off.

Published

9 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Staff Editor

Molly Castle Work
Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000

With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services to youths to help them cope with everything from living with anxiety to body acceptance.

Through their phones, young people and some caregivers can meet BrightLife Kids and Soluna coaches, some who specialize in peer support or substance use disorders, for roughly 30-minute virtual counseling sessions that are best suited to those with more mild needs, typically those without a clinical diagnosis. The apps also feature self-directed activities, such as white noise sessions, guided breathing, and videos of ocean waves to help users relax.

“We believe they're going to have not just great impact, but wide impact across California, especially in places where maybe it's not so easy to find an in-person behavioral health visit or the kind of coaching and supports that parents and young people need,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom's health secretary, Mark Ghaly, during the Jan. 16 announcement.

The apps represent one of the Democratic governor's major forays into health technology and come with four-year contracts valued at $498 million. California is believed to be the first state to offer a mental health app with free coaching to all young residents, according to the Department of Health Care Services, which operates the program.

However, the rollout has been slow. So slow that one of the companies has missed a deadline to make its app available on Android phones. Only about 15,000 of the state's 12.6 million children and young adults have signed up for the apps, and school counselors say they've never heard of them.

Advocates for youth question the wisdom of investing taxpayer dollars in two private companies. Social workers are concerned the companies' coaches won't properly identify youths who need referrals for clinical care. And the spending is drawing lawmaker scrutiny amid a state deficit pegged at as much as $73 billion.

An App for That

Newsom's administration says the apps fill a need for young Californians and their families to access professional telehealth for free, in multiple languages, and outside of standard 9-to-5 hours. It's part of Newsom's sweeping $4.7 billion master plan for kids' mental health, which was introduced in 2022 to increase access to mental health and substance use support services. In addition to launching virtual tools such as the teletherapy apps, the initiative is working to expand workforce capacity, especially in underserved areas.

“The reality is that we are rarely 6 feet away from our devices,” said Sohil Sud, director of Newsom's Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. “The question is how we can leverage technology as a resource for all California youth and families, not in place of, but in addition to, other behavioral health services that are being developed and expanded.”

The virtual platforms come amid rising depression and suicide rates among youth and a shortage of mental health providers. Nearly half of California youths from the ages of 12 to 17 report having recently struggled with mental health issues, with nearly a third experiencing serious psychological distress, according to a 2021 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. These rates are even higher for multiracial youths and those from low-income families.

But those supporting youth mental health at the local level question whether the apps will move the needle on climbing depression and suicide rates.

“It's fair to applaud the state of California for aggressively seeking new tools,” said Alex Briscoe of California Children's Trust, a statewide initiative that, along with more than 100 local partners, works to improve the social and emotional health of children. “We just don't see it as fundamental. And we don't believe the youth mental health crisis will be solved by technology projects built by a professional class who don't share the lived experience of marginalized communities.”

The apps, BrightLife Kids and Soluna, are operated by two companies: Brightline, a 5-year-old venture capital-backed startup; and Kooth, a London-based publicly traded company that has experience in the U.K. and has also signed on some schools in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and a health plan in Illinois. In the first five months of Kooth's Pennsylvania pilot, 6% of students who had access to the app signed up.

Brightline and Kooth represent a growing number of health tech firms seeking to profit in this space. They beat out dozens of other bidders including international consulting companies and other youth telehealth platforms that had already snapped up contracts in California.

Although the service is intended to be free with no insurance requirement, Brightline's app, BrightLife Kids, is folded into and only accessible through the company's main app, which asks for insurance information and directs users to paid licensed counseling options alongside the free coaching. After KFF Health News questioned why the free coaching was advertised below paid options, Brightline reordered the page so that, even if a child has high-acuity needs, free coaching shows up first.

The apps take an expansive view of behavioral health, making the tools available to all California youth under age 26 as well as caregivers of babies, toddlers, and children 12 and under. When KFF Health News asked to speak with an app user, Brightline connected a reporter with a mother whose 3-year-old daughter was learning to sleep on her own.

‘It's Like Crickets'

Despite being months into the launch and having millions in marketing funds, the companies don't have a definitive rollout timeline. Brightline said it hopes to have deployed teams across the state to present the tools in person by midyear. Kooth said developing a strategy to hit every school would be “the main focus for this calendar year.”

“It's a big state — 58 counties,” Bob McCullough of Kooth said. “It'll take us a while to get to all of them.”

Brightline's contract states that the company was required to launch downloadable apps for iOS and Android phones by January, but so far BrightLife Kids is available only on Apple phones. Brightline said it's aiming to launch the Android version over the summer.

“Nobody's really done anything like this at this magnitude, I think, in the U.S. before,” said Naomi Allen, a co-founder and the CEO of Brightline. “We're very much in the early innings. We're already learning a lot.”

The contracts, obtained by KFF Health News through a records request, show the companies operating the two apps could earn as much as $498 million through the contract term, which ends in June 2027, months after Newsom is set to leave office. And the state is spending hundreds of millions more on Newsom's virtual behavioral health strategy. The state said it aims to make the apps available long-term, depending on usage.

The state said 15,000 people signed up in the first three months. When KFF Health News asked how many of those users actively engaged with the app, it declined to say, noting that data would be released this summer.

KFF Health News reached out to nearly a dozen California mental health professionals and youths. None of them were aware of the apps.

“I'm not hearing anything,” said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. “It's like crickets.”

Whitson said she doesn't think the apps are on “anyone's” radar in schools, and she doesn't know of any schools that are actively advertising them. Brightline will be presenting its tool to the counselor association in May, but Whitson said the company didn't reach out to plan the meeting; she did.

Concern Over Referrals

Whitson isn't comfortable promoting the apps just yet. Although both companies said they have a clinical team on staff to assist, Whitson said she's concerned that the coaches, who aren't all licensed therapists, won't have the training to detect when users need more help and refer them to clinical care.

This sentiment was echoed by other school-based social workers, who also noted the apps' duplicative nature — in some counties, like Los Angeles, youths can access free virtual counseling sessions through Hazel Health, a for-profit company. Nonprofits, too, have entered this space. For example, Teen Line, a peer-to-peer hotline operated by Southern California-based Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, is free nationwide.

While the state is also funneling money to the schools as part of Newsom's master plan, students and school-based mental health professionals voiced confusion at the large app investment when, in many school districts, few in-person counseling roles exist, and in some cases are dwindling.

Kelly Merchant, a student at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, noted that it can be hard to access in-person therapy at her school. She believes the community college, which has about 15,000 students, has only one full-time counselor and one part-time bilingual counselor. She and several students interviewed by KFF Health News said they appreciated having engaging content on their phone and the ability to speak to a coach, but all said they'd prefer in-person therapy.

“There are a lot of people who are seeking therapy, and people close to me that I know. But their insurances are taking forever, and they're on the waitlist,” Merchant said. “And, like, you're seeing all these people struggle.”

Fiscal conservatives question whether the money could be spent more effectively, like to bolster county efforts and existing youth behavioral health programs.

Republican state Sen. Roger Niello, vice chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, noted that California is forecasted to face deficits for the next three years, and taxpayer watchdogs worry the apps might cost even more in the long run.

“What starts as a small financial commitment can become uncontrollable expenses down the road,” said Susan Shelley of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

——————————
By: Molly Castle Work
Title: California Is Investing $500M in Therapy Apps for Youth. Advocates Fear It Won't Pay Off.
Sourced From: kffhealthnews.org/news/article/california-youth-teletherapy-apps-rollout-slow/
Published Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Post Views: 20

Kaiser Health News

KFF Health News’ ‘What the Health?’: Abortion — Again — At the Supreme Court

Published

23 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Staff Editor

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:30:00 +0000

The Host

Julie Rovner
KFF Health News

@jrovner

Read Julie's stories.

Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News' weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition.

Some justices suggested the Supreme Court had said its piece on abortion law when it overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This term, however, the court has agreed to review another abortion case. At issue is whether a federal law requiring emergency care in hospitals overrides Idaho's near-total abortion ban. A decision is expected by summer.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid finalized the first-ever minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes participating in the programs. But the industry argues that there are not enough workers to hire to meet the standards.

This week's panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University's nursing and public health schools and Politico Magazine, Tami Luhby of CNN, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.

Panelists

Joanne Kenen
Johns Hopkins University and Politico

@JoanneKenen

Read Joanne's articles.

Tami Luhby
CNN

@Luhby

Read Tami's stories.

Alice Miranda Ollstein
Politico

@AliceOllstein

Read Alice's stories.

Among the takeaways from this week's episode:

This week's Supreme Court hearing on emergency abortion care in Idaho was the first challenge to a state's abortion ban since the overturn of the constitutional right to an abortion. Unlike previous abortion cases, this one focused on the everyday impacts of bans on abortion care — cases in which pregnant patients experienced medical emergencies.
Establishment medical groups and doctors themselves are getting more vocal and active as states set laws on abortion access. In a departure from earlier political moments, some major medical groups are campaigning on state ballot measures.
Medicaid officials this week finalized new rules intended to more closely regulate managed-care plans that enroll Medicaid patients. The rules are intended to ensure, among other things, that patients have prompt access to needed primary care doctors and specialists.
Also this week, the Federal Trade Commission voted to ban most “noncompete” clauses in employment contracts. Such language has become common in health care and prevents not just doctors but other health workers from changing jobs — often forcing those workers to move or commute to leave a position. Business interests are already suing to block the new rules, claiming they would be too expensive and risk the loss of proprietary information to competitors.
The fallout from the cyberattack of Change Healthcare continues, as yet another group is demanding ransom from UnitedHealth Group, Change's owner. UnitedHealth said in a statement this week that the records of “a substantial portion of America” may be involved in the breach.

Plus for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too:

Julie Rovner: NBC News' “Women Are Less Likely To Die When Treated by Female Doctors, Study Suggests,” by Liz Szabo.

Alice Miranda Ollstein: States Newsroom's “Loss of Federal Protection in Idaho Spurs Pregnant Patients To Plan for Emergency Air Transport,” by Kelcie Moseley-Morris.

Tami Luhby: The Associated Press' “Mississippi Lawmakers Haggle Over Possible Medicaid Expansion as Their Legislative Session Nears End,” by Emily Wagster Pettus.

Joanne Kenen: States Newsroom's “Missouri Prison Agency To Pay $60K for Sunshine Law Violations Over Inmate Death Records,” by Rudi Keller.

Also mentioned on this week's podcast:

American Economic Review's “Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the U.S. Hospital Sector?” by Zarek Brot-Goldberg, Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig, and Lev Klarnet.
KFF Health News' “Medical Providers Still Grappling With UnitedHealth Cyberattack: ‘More Devastating Than Covid,” by Samantha Liss.

Credits

Francis Ying
Audio producer

Emmarie Huetteman
Editor

To hear all our podcasts, click here.

And subscribe to KFF Health News' “What the Health?” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

——————————
Title: KFF Health News' ‘What the Health?': Abortion — Again — At the Supreme Court
Sourced From: kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast/what-the-health-344-abortion-supreme-court-april-25-2024/
Published Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 20:30:00 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/mandatory-reporting-laws-meant-to-protect-children-get-another-look/

Post Views: 28