Esther Bejarano’s son was 11 months old when asthma landed him in the hospital. She didn’t know what had triggered his symptoms — neither she nor her husband had asthma — but she suspected it was the pesticides sprayed on the agricultural fields near her family’s home. Pesticides are a known contributor to asthma and […]
There’s a fight in the nation’s capital that could affect health care for millions of Americans. At stake is a $42 billion infrastructure program and whether it should continue as planned. The money is for states to build high-speed internet — particularly in rural areas where telehealth currently doesn’t always work. Chief rural health correspondent […]
Despite years of patient complaints and quality-of-care concerns, Ballad Health — the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly — will now be held to a lower standard by the Tennessee government, and state data that holds the monopoly accountable will be kept from the public for two years. Ballad is the only option for hospital care […]
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Navajo Nation leaders took turns talking with the U.S. government’s top health official as they hiked along a sandstone ridge overlooking their rural, high-desert town before the morning sun grew too hot. Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, paused at the edge with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. […]
Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed covid-19 vaccines and prostate cancer on WAMU’s “1A” on May 27. Click here to hear Gounder on “1A.” Senior correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed how internet dead zones deepen chronic health issues in rural communities on The Commonwealth Fund’s “The Dose” on May 23. Click […]
In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.” Trump said he calls […]
GLOBE, Ariz. — Like many residents of this copper-mining town in the mountains east of Phoenix, Debbie Cox knows plenty of people on Medicaid. Cox, who is a property manager at a real estate company in Globe, has tenants who rely on the safety-net program. And at the domestic violence shelter where she volunteers as […]
HAMILTON, Mont. — Scientists are often careful to take off their work badges when they leave the campus of one of the nation’s top research facilities, here in southwestern Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. It’s a reflection of the long-standing tension caused by Rocky Mountain Laboratories’ improbable location in this conservative, blue-collar town of 5,000 that was […]
Health care has proved a vulnerable target for the firehose of cuts and policy changes President Donald Trump ordered in the name of reducing waste and improving efficiency. But most of the impact isn’t as tangible as, say, higher egg prices at the grocery store. One thing experts from a wide range of fields, from […]
WINNER, S.D. — Sophie Hofeldt planned to receive prenatal care and give birth at her local hospital, 10 minutes from her house. Instead, she’s driving more than three hours round trip for her appointments. The hospital, Winner Regional Health, recently joined the increasing number of rural hospitals shuttering their birthing units. “It’s going to be […]
