Health Insurance and Costs

While ACA repeal efforts have stalled, the individual mandate is gone and Medicaid work requirements are proliferating. Two expert observers weigh in on states' growing role in shaping health policy.

One of the busiest free clinics in the state of North Carolina closed its doors in 2016. A reporter decided to find out what that meant for the health of the county's disproportionately poor residents.

The Argus Leader reviewed hundreds of pages of federal hospital inspection records and legal filings as part of a monthslong investigation into the facilities. And reporters met with dozens of tribal members on visits to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations.

Susan Moore has colon cancer. She couldn’t afford transportation to dialysis three times a week. Until recently, she wanted to die. Her story struck reporter Tracie Potts especially hard.

After the state expanded Medicaid under the ACA, Washington state health officials noticed that people who were focused on survival were letting their health needs fall by the wayside.

Some call it Medicare-for-all or single-payer health insurance, but the concept is the same: a system that provides everyone with health care regardless of their ability to pay.

Rebecca Adams reported this story with support from the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, a program of the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism.

New research from RAND finds LA's program to get people off the street and into permanent, supportive housing led to fewer heath visits and a net savings for the county.

"The reality is that many medical students, residents and trainee physicians are illiterate in the basics of public health and health policy," says Dr. Rusha Modi.

This story was produced with the USC Center For Health Journalism's National Fellowship and Kaiser Health News.