Public Health
What’s Scarier Than Covid? Halloween Health Haikus
Boo that we couldn’t treat all the readers participating in our third annual KHN Halloween Haiku Contest to their moment of gory glory. Your entries — like our health care system — ranged from frighteningly complex to haunting. And, based on a review by our panel of never-say-die judges, here’s the winner and a sampling […]
ERs Are Swamped With Seriously Ill Patients, Although Many Don’t Have Covid
Inside the emergency department at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan, staff members are struggling to care for patients showing up much sicker than they’ve ever seen. Tiffani Dusang, the ER’s nursing director, practically vibrates with pent-up anxiety, looking at patients lying on a long line of stretchers pushed up against the beige walls of the […]
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Social-Spending ‘Framework’ Pulls Back on Key Health Pledges
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here for a transcript of the episode. President Joe Biden unveiled a purported compromise on his social-spending plan shortly before taking off for a series of meetings in […]
Medicare Plans’ ‘Free’ Dental, Vision, Hearing Benefits Come at a Cost
When Teresa Nolan Barensfeld turned 65 last year, she quickly decided on a private Medicare Advantage plan to cover her health expenses. Barensfeld, a freelance editor from Chatham, New York, liked that it covered her medications, while her local hospitals and her primary care doctor were in the plan’s network. It also had a modest […]
Understaffed State Psychiatric Facilities Leave Mental Health Patients in Limbo
Many patients dealing with mental health crises are having to wait several days in an ER until a bed becomes available at one of Georgia’s five state psychiatric hospitals, as public facilities nationwide feel the pinch of the pandemic. “We’re in crisis mode,’’ said Dr. John Sy, an emergency medicine physician in Savannah. “Two weeks […]
Fresh Faces, Fewer Tools: Meet the New Bosses Fighting Covid
VIRGINIA CITY, Mont. — Emilie Sayler’s roots run deep in southwestern Montana. She serves on a nearby town council and the board of the local Little League. She went to college in a neighboring county and regularly volunteers in the schools of her three kids. Just a few months into her new job as public […]
In Maine, Vaccine Mandate for EMTs Stresses Small-Town Ambulance Crews
On a recent morning, Jerrad Dinsmore and Kevin LeCaptain of Waldoboro EMS in rural Maine drove their ambulance to a secluded house near the ocean, to measure the clotting levels of a woman in her 90s. They told the woman, bundled under blankets to keep warm, they would contact her doctor with the result. “Is […]
“Este es el último pañal que me queda”: la ansiedad de ser padres en la pobreza
Para los padres que viven en la pobreza, la “matemática del pañal” es un cálculo diario, apremiante y angustiante, con el que están familiarizados. En los Estados Unidos, los bebés usan de seis a 10 pañales desechables al día, a un costo promedio de $70 a $80 al mes. Los pañales de marca con alta […]
Montana Tribes Want to Stop Jailing People for Suicide Attempts but Lack a Safer Alternative
POPLAR, Mont. — When Maria Vega was a senior in high school in 2015, she found the body of one of her closest friends, who had died by suicide. A few days later, devastated by the loss, Vega tried to take her own life. After the attempt failed, she was arrested and taken to juvenile […]
‘Down to My Last Diaper’: The Anxiety of Parenting in Poverty
For parents living in poverty, “diaper math” is a familiar and distressingly pressing daily calculation. Babies in the U.S. go through six to 10 disposable diapers a day, at an average cost of $70 to $80 a month. Name-brand diapers with high-end absorption sell for as much as a half a dollar each, and can […]