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Abortion clinics — and patients — are on the move as state laws keep shifting
Soon after a series of state laws left a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri, unable to provide abortions in 2018, it shipped some of its equipment to states where abortion remained accessible. Recovery chairs, surgical equipment, and lighting from the Missouri clinic — all expensive and perfectly good — could still be useful to […]
Kids who survived KC Super Bowl shooting are scared, suffering panic attacks and sleep problems
Six months after Gabriella Magers-Darger’s legs were burned by sparks from a ricocheted bullet at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade in February, the 14-year-old is ready to leave the past behind. She is dreading the pitfalls of being a high school freshman, even as she looks forward to being back with friends and […]
Kansas City Super Bowl parade shooting survivors await promised donations while bills pile up
Abigail Arellano keeps her son Samuel’s medical bills in a blue folder in a cabinet above the microwave. Even now, four months after the 11-year-old was shot at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, the bills keep coming. There’s one for $1,040 for the ambulance ride to the hospital that February afternoon. Another for […]
They were shot at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade. They may have bullets in their bodies forever
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. Mireya Nelson, 15, was hit by a bullet that went through her jaw and broke […]
They were injured at the Kansas City Super Bowl shooting. Now they feel forgotten
Jason Barton didn’t want to attend the Super Bowl parade this year. He told a co-worker the night before that he worried about a mass shooting. But it was Valentine’s Day, his wife is a Kansas City Chiefs superfan, and he couldn’t afford to take her to games since ticket prices soared after the team […]
Medical exiles: Families flee states amid crackdown on transgender care
Hal Dempsey wanted to “escape Missouri.” Arlo Dennis is “fleeing Florida.” The Tillison family “can’t stay in Texas.” They are part of a new migration of Americans who are uprooting their lives in response to a raft of legislation across the country restricting health care for transgender people. Missouri, Florida, and Texas are among at […]
Can a fetus be an employee? States are testing the boundaries of personhood after ‘Dobbs’
CLAYTON, Mo. — Kaitlyn Anderson was six months pregnant when a driver killed her and a Missouri Department of Transportation colleague in 2021 while they were doing roadwork near St. Louis. Her fetus also died. Although Anderson’s family tried to sue the department on her behalf, workers’ compensation laws in Missouri and elsewhere shield employers […]
Temp nurses cost hospitals big during the pandemic. Missouri lawmakers are mulling limits
To crack down on price gouging, proposed legislation in Missouri calls for allowing felony charges against health care staffing agencies that substantially raise their prices during a declared emergency. A New York bill includes a cap on the amount staffing agencies can charge health care facilities. And a Texas measure would allow civil penalties against […]
Months-long wait for Missouri Medicaid coverage is a sign of what’s to come
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News. Korra Elliott has tried to avoid seeing a doctor while waiting to get on Medicaid. She worries she can’t afford more bills without any insurance coverage. But in early March — five months, she said, after applying and with still no decision about her application — […]
Missouri tried to fix its doctor shortage. Now the fix may need fixing
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News. Missouri state Rep. Tricia Derges is pushing a bill to give assistant physicians like herself a pathway to becoming fully licensed doctors in the state. Not that Derges — among the highest-profile holders of the assistant physician license created in 2014 to ease a doctor shortage […]
Missouri takes months to process Medicaid applications — longer than law allows
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News. Aneka French applied for Medicaid in October, not long after Missouri became the 38th state to expand eligibility for the program. But her application sat for months in a backlog with tens of thousands of others. While she waited, French, 45, an uninsured medical technician from […]
Bounties and bonuses: Small Missouri hospitals are left behind by COVID staffing wars
This story was originally publish by Kaiser Health News. A recent lawsuit filed by one Wisconsin health system that temporarily prevented seven workers from starting new jobs at a different health network raised eyebrows, including those of Brock Slabach, chief operations officer of the National Rural Health Association. “To me, that signifies the desperation that […]