JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — Heather Crivilare was a month from her due date when she was rushed to an operating room for an emergency cesarean section. The first-time mother, a high school teacher in rural Illinois, had developed high blood pressure, a sometimes life-threatening condition in pregnancy that prompted doctors to hospitalize her. Then Crivilare’s blood pressure spiked, and the baby’s heart rate dropped. “It was terrifying,” Crivilare said. She gave birth to a healthy daughter. What followed, though, was another ordeal: thousands of dollars in medical debt that sent Crivilare and her husb ..read more

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. A new analysis finds that graduating medical students were less likely to apply this year for residency training in states that ban or restrict abortion. That was true not only for aspiring OB-GYNs and others who regularly treat pr ..read more

Isabella Rosario Blum was wrapping up medical school and considering residency programs to become a family practice physician when she got some frank advice: If she wanted to be trained to provide abortions, she shouldn’t stay in Arizona. Blum turned to programs mostly in states where abortion access — and, by extension, abortion training — is likely to remain protected, like California, Colorado, and New Mexico. Arizona has enacted a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. “I would really like to have all the training possible,” she said, “so of course that would have still been a limitati ..read more

Bill Thompson’s wife had never seen him smile with confidence. For the first 20 years of their relationship, an infection in his mouth robbed him of teeth, one by one. “I didn’t have any teeth to smile with,” the 53-year-old of Independence, Missouri, said. Thompson said he dealt with throbbing toothaches and painful swelling in his face from abscesses for years working as a cook at Burger King. He desperately needed to see a dentist but said he couldn’t afford to take time off without pay. Missouri is one of many states that do not require employers to provide paid sick leave. So, Thompson wo ..read more

The Biden administration’s plan to set minimum staffing levels for nursing homes prompted comments from more than 46,500 people and organizations — including residents of homes and nurses with harrowing stories about conditions inside. One resident purchased a bullhorn with a siren to get nurses’ and aides’ attention because he was often left sitting in his own stool, one commenter recounted. Nurses at one facility declared a “med holiday,” according to a dietitian, and threw away all the drugs for a shift because they didn’t have time to pass them out. A day shift nurse found a resident chok ..read more

James Lemons, 39, wants the bullet removed from his thigh so he can go back to work. Sarai Holguin, a 71-year-old woman originally from Mexico, has accepted the bullet lodged near her knee as her “compa” — a close friend. The Injured They Were Injured at the Super Bowl Parade. A Month Later, They Feel Forgotten. In the first of our series “The Injured,” a Kansas family remembers Valentine’s Day as the beginning of panic attacks, life-altering trauma, and waking to nightmares of gunfire. Thrown into the spotlight by the shootings, they wonder how they will recover. Read More Mireya Nelson, 15 ..read more

HOUSTON — Patients admitted to Houston Methodist Hospital get a monitoring device about the size of a half-dollar affixed to their chest — and an unwitting role in the expanding use of artificial intelligence in health care. The slender, battery-powered gadget, called a BioButton, records vital signs including heart and breathing rates, then wirelessly sends the readings to nurses sitting in a 24-hour control room elsewhere in the hospital or in their homes. The device’s software uses AI to analyze the voluminous data and detect signs a patient’s condition is deteriorating. Hospital officials ..read more

In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced a precision medicine initiative that would later be known as the All of Us program. The research, now well underway at the National Institutes of Health, aims to analyze the DNA of at least 1 million people across the United States to build a diverse health database. The key word there is “diverse.” So far, the program has collected more than 560,000 DNA samples, and nearly half of participants identify as being part of a racial or ethnic minority group. NIH ..read more

President Joe Biden counts among his accomplishments the record-high number of people, more than 21 million, who enrolled in Obamacare plans this year. Behind the scenes, however, federal regulators are contending with a problem that affects people’s coverage: rogue brokers who have signed people up for Affordable Care Act plans, or switched them into new ones, without their permission. Fighting the problem presents tension for the administration: how to thwart the bad actors without affecting ACA sign-ups. Complaints about these unauthorized changes — which can cause affected policyholders to ..read more

When dermatologist Adewole “Ade” Adamson sees people spritzing sunscreen as if it’s cologne at the pool where he lives in Austin, Texas, he wants to intervene. “My wife says I shouldn’t,” he said, “even though most people rarely use enough sunscreen.” At issue is not just whether people are using enough sunscreen, but what ingredients are in it. The Food and Drug Administration’s ability to approve the chemical filters in sunscreens that are sold in countries such as Japan, South Korea, and France is hamstrung by a 1938 U.S. law that requires sunscreens to be tested on animals and classified a ..read more