Tonight: a record gender gap in who can afford care, Medicaid's maternity ghost networks, and more.
— Meghan McCarthy
p.s. Trivia is back and it has to do with one of tonight’s stories 👀
FORTY-TWO PERCENT OF WOMEN CAN AFFORD THEIR CARE. FOR MEN, IT'S FIFTY-SEVEN.
Americans' ability to pay for healthcare and medicine fell to a five-year low this spring, and the gender gap is the widest this index has recorded: 42% of women are "cost secure" versus 57% of men. Women dropped six points in a single year. The West Health-Gallup reading, drawn from a 5,660-person panel, found the erosion concentrated among women, lower-income households, and people under 50.
MEDICAID'S MATERNITY DIRECTORIES ARE FULL OF DOCTORS WHO WON'T SEE YOU
A federal watchdog audited Medicaid provider directories and found pregnant patients calling OB-GYNs who had moved, retired, or stopped taking the insurance entirely. These "ghost networks" leave mothers on Medicaid, which pays for more than 40% of US births, hunting for prenatal care that exists only on paper. The HHS inspector general's office flagged the directories as a barrier that states are required to fix, but rarely do.
OREGON IS SPENDING $37 MILLION TO KEEP RURAL DELIVERY ROOMS OPEN
As rural maternity wards close across the country, Oregon lawmakers set aside $37 million to prop up the ones still standing, paying hospitals to keep labor-and-delivery units running in counties where the nearest alternative can be hours away. InvestigateWest reported the state is hoping that direct subsidies can slow a national wave of closures and the Trump administration’s Medicaid cuts. The same pressures have shuttered delivery units in dozens of rural counties.
SEVERE PREGNANCY NAUSEA TRACKS WITH A STRING OF DELIVERY COMPLICATIONS
Hyperemesis gravidarum, the extreme nausea and vomiting that can cause dehydration and dangerous weight loss, is linked to a cluster of pregnancy complications, a Stanford team found in 2.5 million California births. Women hospitalized for it were about 25% more likely to deliver preterm, 37% more likely to be anemic, and 18% more likely to develop preeclampsia. Around 2.2%—some 53,700 women—had the condition, and the researchers argue it should flag a pregnancy for closer monitoring rather than be dismissed as ordinary morning sickness.
AN AI THAT WATCHES YOUR MAMMOGRAMS OVER TIME FLAGS CANCER EARLY
An algorithm that compares a woman's mammograms across years, rather than reading each in isolation, predicted future breast cancer risk more accurately than current risk models, a Radiology study of 54,014 women reported. Tracking subtle changes across 158,807 mammograms, it spotted patterns preceding 817 diagnoses. One caveat worth naming: the senior author runs a company commercializing exactly this kind of AI risk tool.