Luring Out-of-State Professionals Is Just the First Step in Solving Montana’s Health Worker Shortage

Jenna Eisenhart spent nearly six years as a licensed therapist in Colorado before deciding to move to a place with a greater need for her services. She researched rural states facing a shortage of behavioral health providers and accepted a job as a lead clinical primary therapist at Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena, Montana, in […]

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As US Bumps Against Debt Ceiling, Medicare Becomes a Bargaining Chip

The Host While repealing the Affordable Care Act seems to have fallen off congressional Republicans’ to-do list for 2023, plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid are back. The GOP wants Democrats to agree to cut spending on both programs in exchange for a vote to prevent the government from defaulting on its debts. Meanwhile, the […]

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Readers and Tweeters Diagnose Greed and Chronic Pain Within US Health Care System

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. U.S. Health Care Is Harmful to One’s Health Thank you for publishing this research (“Hundreds of Hospitals Sue Patients or Threaten Their Credit, a KHN Investigation Finds. Does Yours?” Dec. 21). […]

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A $30 Million Gift to Build an Addiction Treatment Center. Then Staffers Had to Run It.

DECATUR, Ill. — The question came out of the blue, or so it seemed to Crossing Healthcare CEO Tanya Andricks: If you had $30 million to design an addiction treatment facility, how would you do it? The interim sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, posed the question in 2018 as he and Andricks discussed the community’s […]

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What Older Americans Need to Know About Taking Paxlovid

A new coronavirus variant is circulating, the most transmissible one yet. Hospitalizations of infected patients are rising. And older adults represent nearly 90% of U.S. deaths from covid-19 in recent months, the largest portion since the start of the pandemic. What does that mean for people 65 and older catching covid for the first time […]

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After a Brief Pandemic Reprieve, Rural Workers Return to Life Without Paid Leave

ELKO, Nev. — When Ruby B. Sutton found out she was pregnant in late 2021, it was hard to envision how her full-time job would fit with having a newborn at home. She faced a three-hour round-trip commute to the mine site where she worked as an environmental engineer, 12-plus-hour workdays, expensive child care, and […]

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Numbers Don’t Lie. Biden Kept His Promise on Improving Obamacare.

Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News Promise: “I’ll not only restore Obamacare; I’ll build on it.” In a speech on Nov. 2, 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden promised, “I’ll not only restore Obamacare; I’ll build on it.” Two years and counting since then, how is he doing in meeting that promise? KHN has teamed up with […]

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The Biggest, Buzziest Conference for Health Care Investors Convenes Amid Fears the Bubble Will Burst

SAN FRANCISCO — Health care’s business class returned to its San Francisco sanctuary last week for JPMorgan’s annual health care confab, at the gilded Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square. After a two-year pandemic pause, the mood among the executives, bankers, and startup founders in attendance had the aura of a reunion — as […]

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Will Your Smartphone Be the Next Doctor’s Office?

(Oona Tempest/KHN) The same devices used to take selfies and type out tweets are being repurposed and commercialized for quick access to information needed for monitoring a patient’s health. A fingertip pressed against a phone’s camera lens can measure a heart rate. The microphone, kept by the bedside, can screen for sleep apnea. Even the […]

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Rural Seniors Benefit From Pandemic-Driven Remote Fitness Boom

MALMO, Minn. — Eight women, all 73 or older, paced the fellowship hall at Malmo Evangelical Free Church to a rendition of Daniel O’Donnell’s “Rivers of Babylon” as they warmed up for an hourlong fitness class. The women, who live near or on the eastern shore of Mille Lacs Lake, had a variety of reasons […]

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