politics

Vaccine critics head toward statehouses

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Many people believe that state-level changes to vaccine law could be more meaningful than federal ones. One group with the goal of getting bills to roll back vaccine requirements in every statehouse in the country is already working with representatives in nearly a dozen states. Read more on who’s doing this work and what the consequences could be.

priorities

Health care tops the list of household worries, per poll

Americans are most worried about health care costs compared to other household expenses like food, rent, and utilities, according to a new KFF poll. Sixty-six percent of poll respondents are at least somewhat worried about being able to afford health care for themselves and their family, and 55% say those costs have gone up in the past year. Other takeaways from the poll of more than 1,400 people:

• The cost of health care will have a major impact on how 44% of respondents vote in this fall’s midterm elections. Health care will have no impact at all for 25%, and a minor impact for 31%. 
• A majority of respondents (67%) say Congress did the “wrong thing” by not yet extending the ACA enhanced premium tax credits, though judgement fell largely across party lines. While 89% of Democrats agreed with that statement, most (63%) Republicans said Congress did the “right thing” by letting the subsidies expire.

public health

A new approach to challenging state abortion bans

Four women and a doctor have filed the first legal challenge to a near-total abortion ban in Arkansas, a law that had been on the books for three years before the Dobbs decision made it enforceable in 2022. The challenge, filed yesterday, rests on the state’s robust constitutional protections of “inherent and inalienable rights” including those “of pursuing their own happiness.”

It’s also the first case for Amplify Legal, the abortion-focused group representing the plaintiffs. Molly Duane, the group’s litigation director, noted at a press conference that Arkansas, like Kansas, North Dakota, and other states, has expanded constitutional protections far beyond the federal government. It’s within state constitutions that Amplify Legal intends to find arguments against more bans, similar to a recent case in Wyoming that struck down a ban based on a state constitutional right “to make his or her own health care decisions.” Amplify Legal expects to announce “several more” cases in the coming weeks and months, Duane said.

Theresa Van, one of the plaintiffs, wanted a second child, but learned partway through her pregnancy that the baby would not survive. Still, for seven more weeks, she carried the pregnancy to term because she didn’t have the money to leave the state for an abortion, on top of being scared of criminal penalties. “I wish that more people would understand that what happened to me is not rare,” Van said at the press conference. She described the experience as a lasting trauma: “It doesn’t end when you leave the hospital.”