Author

Anna Claire Vollers

Anna Claire Vollers

Anna Claire Vollers covers health care for Stateline. She is based in Huntsville, Alabama.

Anti-abortion and abortion rights activists protest during the 50th annual March for Life rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court

Abortion opponents push state lawmakers to promote unproven ‘abortion reversal’

By: - December 2, 2023

Anti-abortion organizations are pushing state lawmakers to promote a controversial and unproven “abortion reversal” treatment — flouting the objections of medical professionals who point out it is not supported by science. In the past several years, Republican lawmakers in at least 14 states have passed laws requiring health care providers to give patients information about […]

Nurse practitioner Anthony Carano speaks with a patient at the Mountain Park Health Center, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Phoenix.

The ‘doctor of nursing practice’ will see you now

By: - November 19, 2023

When Vernon Langford sees patients, he typically wears a white lab coat with his title — “Dr.” — and his credentials as a nurse practitioner stitched on the front. “My credentials are on any jackets I have, the shirts I wear. If I have a name tag, it’s on that,” said Langford, who works as […]

An Uber sign is displayed inside a car on its dashboard.

GOP states embrace Uber, Lyft to take low-income patients to medical appointments

By: - November 2, 2023

This month, Mississippi becomes the latest state to partner with ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft to ferry residents to their medical appointments. It’s a bid to improve overall health in a state where advocates and medical groups have called health care a crisis that’s getting worse. Ryan Kelly, executive director of the Mississippi […]

Cindy Clemons receives dental care from Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry third-year student Onyeka Oguagha and oral surgery resident Matthew Moore in Nashville

10 Medicaid holdout states scramble to improve health coverage

By: - October 19, 2023

The Republican-led states that have refused to expand Medicaid are trying a variety of strategies to save struggling hospitals and cover more people without full expansion, which was one of the key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Georgia passed a partial expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health coverage to low-income and disabled Americans, […]

Faith-based maternity homes ‘create a haven’ in states with strict abortion laws

By: - October 3, 2023

CHILTON COUNTY, Ala. — At the end of a gravel road that runs through a wooded property in Chilton County, Alabama, a plain white two-story house sits overlooking a small pond. Outside the house, everything is tranquil: The swings on the new playground nearby are quiet, the pond is still, the rocking chairs lined up […]

Brianne Walker plays with her 3-year-old daughter, Jeannette, at A Place To Grow daycare in Brentwood, New Hampshire.

As child poverty doubles, states launch or expand their own tax credits

By: - September 21, 2023

The federal pandemic-era child tax credit expansion lifted millions of children out of poverty in the second half of 2021. But Congress allowed it to expire at the end of that year, and new U.S. census data shows the child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022, erasing the record gains that were made. “It […]

Senator Beth Mizell at a Louisiana Legislature committee hearing

Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care

By: - August 24, 2023

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Louisiana Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell looked for a way to address her state’s abysmal record on infant and maternal mortality, preterm births and low birth weight. Louisiana has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Mizell […]

A profile of a newborn baby's face

Hospitals block much-needed birth centers in the South

By: - August 12, 2023

When Katie Chubb announced in 2021 she was planning to open a freestanding birth center in Augusta, Georgia, it seemed like everybody in town was excited about it. She met with local physicians and nurses who said they would welcome her Augusta Birth Center as a provider of midwifery services for low-risk pregnancies. Hundreds of […]

A march for Transgender Day of Visibility passes in front of Jackson Square in New Orleans

Laws banning gender-affirming treatments can block trans youth from receiving other care

By: - July 27, 2023

In some states, new laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth are dissuading health care providers from offering mental health services and other medical care that isn’t explicitly banned by those laws. In the first few weeks after Mississippi’s law went into effect in February, nurse practitioner Stacie Pace said she was fielding calls and […]