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Portland, Oregon. | SHUTTERSTOCK

Shortages of funds but not of issues marked Oregon health care in 2024

With health care undergoing rapid transformation, officials and lawmakers have struggled to keep up as ripple effects hit patients, providers and members of the public

Dec 31, 2024
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Protesters gather at the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3, 2022, after a report that the court will overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. | SHUTTERSTOCK

The CDC hasn’t asked states to track deaths linked to abortion bans

Despite an executive order issued by President Joe Biden, the CDC has issued no guidance to address the recent rollback of reproductive rights or to direct committees to consider how abortion bans factor into deaths

Dec 31, 2024

COURTESY OF SAINT ALPHONSUS.

For many rural women, finding maternity care outweighs abortion access concerns

The push to preserve and expand abortion access in states where it’s protected often collides with ideological and health care divides between urban and rural residents

Dec 31, 2024

Nurses and other health care workers along with their supporters took to the picket lines outside Providence Portland Medical Center on Monday as the state’s largest nurses union called a five-day strike. | JAKE THOMAS/THE LUND REPORT

Nurses union brandishes new clout in Providence contract showdown

The Oregon Nurses Association says Providence Health is focused on profits over patients, while the health system maintains the union is all about power. The union is vowing that its growing numbers will yield a better deal after members go on strike at eight Oregon hospitals on Jan. 10.

Dec 30, 2024
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United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. | FRANCINE SRECA/PIXABAY

Employers press Congress to cement health price transparency before Trump’s return

Four years after the first Trump administration required hospitals and insurers to disclose charges and payments, it's unclear if the change is leading to lower health care costs

Dec 28, 2024

A encampment is seen from the Willamette River in Portland, Ore., on May 29, 2024. | APRIL EHRLICH/OPB

Last year was the deadliest on record for people in Portland who are homeless

Fentanyl drove the biggest spike in Multnomah County deaths, according to the health department

Dec 26, 2024

The Oregon Health Insurance Marketplace is a state portal that connects individuals to health insurance and potential federal subsidies to help pay for it. | HEALTHCARE.OREGON.GOV/THE LUND REPORT

Oregon insurance website project was halted over bidder-consultant connection, records show

A high-profile, legislatively-mandated Oregon health insurance website contracting process was scrapped after an Oregon Health Authority consultant evaluating bids was linked to one of the bidders. Now state officials are trying to get things back on track.

Dec 19, 2024

MARCELO IKEDA TCHELÃO/PIXABAY

Oregon task force ends work without unity on recommendations about raising alcohol taxes

A legislative task force studying the public health impacts of alcohol abuse and whether to raise alcohol taxes for addiction treatment has ended its work without endorsing any specific recommendations.

Dec 19, 2024

Three influenza A (H5N1/bird flu) virus particles. The image incorporates two CDC transmission electron micrographs that have been inverted, repositioned and colorized by NIAID. | COURTESY/CDC AND NIAID VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Why Oregonians should care, but not panic, about bird flu

Experts, including those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stress that the current risk to the general public is low. However, flu viruses can evolve, and the CDC rates the bird flu’s potential to adapt for sustained human-to-human transmission as “moderate.

Dec 19, 2024

SHUTTERSTOCK

Are abortion bans across America causing deaths? The states that passed them are doing little to find out.

The same political leaders who enacted abortion bans oversee the state committees that review maternal deaths. These committees haven’t tracked the laws’ impacts, and most haven’t finished examining cases from the year the bans went into effect.

Dec 19, 2024

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