Health and Welfare

More than three years after the start of the pandemic, Medicaid recipients must once again prove eligibility to remain covered. More than 100,000 have yet to return paperwork for July, with millions more in potential peril over the months to come.

During the COVID pandemic, an unprecedented 3.1 million Michiganders were covered by Medicaid, the safety-net insurance program. The rule has expired, and Michigan is paring back its programs, with the first people losing coverage July 31.

Deaths of pregnant and new moms underscore a stark disparity: Black women are nearly three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women. Henry Ford Health in Detroit is trying a simple approach to narrow that gap.

The death of an Olympian elevates awareness of a longtime crisis in maternal mortality. Michigan is making it easier for Medicaid recipients to receive doulas who advocate for mothers, who are disproportionately given cesarians.

The state wants to limit the number of seriously ill children placed in institutional settings. But it’s getting pushback from some parents whose children are too volatile to stay at home and need longer-term residential care that’s in short supply.

The state loosened income eligibility requirements for families to qualify for the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food assistance for pregnant and postpartum women as well as children under the age of 5.

The scarcity of two core cancer drugs, carboplatin and cisplatin, have grown so acute that some patients may be forced to delay treatment or take lesser doses.

Drug shortages have come and gone over the years, but national data confirms what Michigan doctors are feeling: they’re worse now.