Category: Health

Colleen DeGuzman Narciso Lopez has spent more than two decades working to control the spread of tuberculosis in South Texas. He used to think that when patient traffic into the clinics where he worked was slow, that meant the surrounding community was healthy. But when the covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, that changed. “I […]

Dan Weissmann When a patient faces an outrageous medical bill, they have two choices: Pay the balance or fight. Lauren Slemenda chose to fight. After failing to reach a consensus with the hospital on a fair price, she took the case to small-claims court. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann spoke with Slemenda […]

Republican lawmakers in Montana wield a supermajority that gives them the power to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would break the link between abortion rights and the right to privacy in the state’s constitution. But so far, they haven’t sought to ask voters to make the change, a rewrite that would allow […]

It was around 2 a.m. when Carmen realized her 12-year-old daughter was in danger and needed help. Haley wasn’t in her room — or anywhere else in the house. Carmen tracked Haley’s phone to a main street in their central Massachusetts community. “She don’t know the danger that she was taking out there,” said Carmen, […]

February 15, 2023 Vanessa Garcia Clark wanted a more personal, nontraditional birth when she was pregnant with her son. She hired a midwife and gave birth at her home in California. But when she asked her insurer to reimburse her for the midwifery bill totaling more than $9,500, her claim was denied. In the first […]

Courtenay Harris Bond Many people living on the streets in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood — the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast — are in full-blown addiction, openly snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit drugs, hunched over crates or on stoops. Syringes litter sidewalks, and the stench of urine fouls the air. The neighborhood’s afflictions […]

Hannah Crabtree got active on Twitter in 2016 to find more people like herself: those with Type 1 diabetes who’d hacked their insulin pumps to automatically adjust the amount of insulin delivered. Soon, though, Crabtree found a more critical diabetes-related conversation happening on Twitter: rising insulin prices. Crabtree’s mother, who also had diabetes, died in […]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics. State Sen. María Elena Durazo’s bill would require health facilities and home health agencies to give raises to many […]

LA PLANT, S.D. — Past a gravel road lined with old white wooden buildings is a new, 8-acre village dotted with colorful houses, tepees, and a sweat lodge. The Simply Smiles Children’s Village, in this small town on the Cheyenne River Reservation, is home to a program aimed at improving outcomes and reducing trauma for […]

After several rounds of treatment for a rare eye cancer — weekly drug infusions that could cost nearly $50,000 each — Paul Davis learned Medicare had abruptly stopped paying the bills. That left Davis, a retired physician in Findlay, Ohio, contemplating a horrific choice: risk saddling his family with huge medical debt, if he had to […]