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Opioid settlement payouts will be made to thousands of communities across the country over 18 years. Payouts in the Kansas City metropolitan area so far have ranged from $2.4 million to Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas City to $4,500 to Westwood, Kansas.
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Representatives from Illinois, Kansas and Missouri are part of the caucus behind a package of bills that would promote healthy outcomes for Black mothers, who die from pregnancy-related causes at far higher rates than women of other races.
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Missouri banned gender-affirming health care for minors, and Kansas could follow suit this spring. So families are forced to move to other states or travel hundreds of miles, sometimes with the help of a growing network of groups determined to make the care available.
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Missouri Democrats filibustered for more than 11 hours to try and block the bill, which they say will hurt low-income and disabled patients. The legislation would make it financially difficult for Planned Parenthood clinics in the state — which do not provide abortions — to provide health services for Medicaid recipients.
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Lobbyists and legislators have been pushing for years to eliminate copays for supplemental and diagnostic breast cancer screening, which other Midwest states have already done. Advocates say they create cost barriers that can lead to late diagnosis.
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Missouri was one of only four states, along with Georgia, Iowa and Texas, that saw an increase in infant mortality between 2021 and 2022, according to federal data. And Black women are dying at much higher rates than their white counterparts.
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Delta-8 THC products — including a large variety of drinks that are popular at bars and available at gas stations throughout the state — can be sold in Missouri stores because they are made from hemp, which is federally legal.
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Since 2017, the percentage of Missouri's kindergarten-age children who have received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has dropped from 95% to around 90%, according to state health officials.
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A Republican-backed bill would block Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. Health care providers fear it will harm patients’ access to critical care.
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The Supreme Court heard a case Tuesday about whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration overstepped when it revised requirements for how a medication abortion drug should be dosed and prescribed. The case was brought by attorney Erin Hawley, the wife of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.
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The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires that Medicaid applications for the largest group of participants — who are low-income children, families and adults — be processed within 45 days. In February, Missouri took an average of 77 days to process applications.
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The Douglas County Sheriff's Office is working with local mental health providers to cut down the state’s notoriously long wait times to provide services to inmates declared incompetent to stand trial.
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Ballot initiatives are one way for voters to assert their power over the political whims of Missouri's state legislature or courts. They are often viewed as more stable and harder to undo.
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The Missouri House advanced a bill that would prevent pregnant inmates in their third trimester from being restrained, except under extraordinary circumstances. The bill would also create certain health care requirements for pregnant inmates and reverse the prohibition on nonviolent drug offenders receiving SNAP benefits.