LOUISVILLE, Kent. — At the Kentucky Health Justice Network, calls have doubled over the past several months – up to 50 a week. The organization advocates for abortion access and provides financial support and guidance to people seeking care. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/10/abortionaccess-feature-web.mp3 Listen to this story here. Director Erin Smith said lately, the organization has been focused…
SACRAMENTO, Ca. — Jacey Cooper is the director of Medicaid in California, and she’s never been afraid of big challenges. She commuted two hours each way from Bakersfield to Los Angeles to complete her senior year at the University of Southern California after giving birth to twins. Just a few years later, at 27, she…
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/09/kidsmedicaid-feature-web.mp3 Kathreen Friend is a pediatric registered nurse based in Doniphan, Missouri — a small town of about 1,800, just 15 minutes north of the Arkansas border. As the lone pediatric specialist in her county, it’s not unusual for her days to fill up with appointments. “I see a large volume of kids every single…
INDIANAPOLIS — When DeAndra Yates-Dycus got a phone call that her seventh grader was shot, she rushed to the hospital, frantic, hoping she wouldn’t be asked to identify a body. The sheriff met Yates-Dycus and told her that 13-year-old Dre “did not do anything wrong. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong…
FORT WORTH, Tex. — Monica Brown is used to hearing people say she looks young for her age. She’s 41, but feels decades older – mainly because of her struggle with sickle cell disease, a genetic disorder that affects her blood. “People say, ‘Oh you look so good,’ but they do not know what’s going…
The rate of uninsured Americans has been declining, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and expansion of Medicaid in many states. But a recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that having health insurance doesn’t always mean the care you need will be covered, even if that care is provided in-network. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/08/insurancedenials-2way-web.mp3 Listen to…
Tanya Hovey came down with COVID in April 2020. Before the infection, she ran a photography business, was active in her church, loved to garden and cycled several times a week. She was never hospitalized for COVID and thought she was recovering. But her symptoms kept coming back. She would feel fine for two or…
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/08/monkeypox-and-kids-2way-web.mp3 Monkeypox has been found in nearly every state across the U.S. The White House declared it a public health emergency just a few weeks after the World Health Organization designated monkeypox a public health crisis of international concern. Anyone can get monkeypox through close physical contact and sharing personal items with an infected…
CONNERSVILLE, Ind. — Charmin Gabbard cares deeply about people struggling with addiction because it’s a struggle she can relate to. In her 20s, Gabbard had three DUIs in five years. Two of those violations resulted in prison sentences. She was eager to turn her life around. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/08/transportationsud-web.mp3 Listen to this story here. But when she…
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Karen Warpenburg is fighting an almost invisible enemy that’s claiming the lives of a growing number of people in her southern Indiana community: the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Ingesting a tiny amount of the drug can be lethal. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/08/fentanyl-feature-web.mp3 Listen to this story here. But it’s not that people are seeking it…
HELENA, Mon. — Republican Montana state Rep. Ed Buttrey was a key player in expanding the state’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. Now, he’s worried a policy change by the Biden administration could, within a few years, mean the end of an expansion that currently provides more than 100,000 low-income Montanans access to…
Kim Floren has spent the last several weeks trying to comfort people panicking about the end of Roe v. Wade. “Everybody has been on the spectrum from just being in tears to total panic about what they’re going to do,” said Floren, who runs South Dakota’s Justice Through Empowerment Network, one of more than 100…
People who are pregnant in rural areas generally have a harder time reaching a doctor. Dr. Anne Banfield saw this firsthand when she worked as an OB-GYN in rural West Virginia. “We have a lot of mothers in our country who are suffering, because potentially in many cases, there are breakdowns in the prenatal care…
Billions of dollars a year flow to U.S. hospitals through the federal prescription drug discount program known as 340B. A Supreme Court case this summer briefly thrust the little known but highly controversial program into the spotlight. In 2018, the federal government cut payments to hospitals in the program, and a group of hospitals and…
SPRINGFIELD — While COVID may not be top of mind for people anymore, the pandemic isn’t over. And for some who have had COVID, neither is their illness. Many patients with long COVID experience symptoms for weeks or months after their initial infection has passed. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/07/20220719-secovid2wayweb-edit.mp3 Listen to this story here. Nationwide, 1 in 5…