Mountain States Bureau

Latest California Healthline Stories

Unsheltered People Are Losing Medicaid in Redetermination Mix-Ups

Some of the nearly 130,000 Montanans who have lost Medicaid coverage as the state reevaluates eligibility are homeless. That’s in part because Montana kicked more than 80,000 people off the program for technical reasons rather than because of income ineligibility. For unhoused people who were disenrolled, getting back on Medicaid can be extraordinarily difficult.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Arizona Turns Back the Clock on Abortion Access

A week after the Florida Supreme Court said the state could enforce an abortion ban passed in 2023, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that state could enforce a near-total ban passed in 1864 — over a half-century before Arizona became a state. The move further scrambled the abortion issue for Republicans and posed an immediate quandary for former President Donald Trump, who has been seeking an elusive middle ground in the polarized debate. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Stat, and Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Molly Castle Work, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature, about an air-ambulance ride for an infant with RSV that his insurer deemed not medically necessary.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Alabama’s IVF Ruling Still Making Waves

Lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures are scrambling to react to the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization are legally children. Abortion opponents are divided among themselves, with some supporting full “personhood” for fertilized eggs, while others support IVF as a moral way to have children. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Riley Griffin of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins University schools of nursing and public health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews University of Pittsburgh law professor Greer Donley, who explains how a 150-year-old anti-vice law that’s still on the books could be used to ban abortion nationwide. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.

Bathroom Bills Are Back — Broader and Stricter — In Several States

State lawmakers are resurrecting and expanding efforts to prohibit transgender people from using public restrooms and other spaces that match their gender. Some have sought to ban trans people from “sex-designated spaces,” including domestic violence shelters and crisis centers, which experts say could violate anti-discrimination laws and jeopardize federal funding.