Illinois resident Kendall Watters was eight years old when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His family didn't have insurance, so his mother Nora did what any Mom would do. She desperately tried to find someone, anyone who could help her son. Thanks to a federal-state healthcare program that most parents don't even know about, Kendall finally got the care he needed. Today he's a healthy 11-year-old who loves to dance. more

President George W. Bush and members of Congress have been trading barbs on the right-to-sue provision in a federal patient's bill of rights. Will patients truly flood the courts if such a bill is enacted? State officials from California, Maryland and Texas say the answer is no. more

When Oklahoma State Senator Angela Monson testified before Congress on March 15 on a proposed federal Patients' Bill of Rights, she threw her support behind legislation that has long languished in Washington, D.C., Monson noted that the states "have taken the lead in providing needed regulation of managed care." Health care is but one of the areas where states are taking action in the absence of action at the federal level. To cite a few others, many states require employers to pay a higher minimum wage than federal law mandates, and many states have greater privacy safeguards. more

When Congress established the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997, lawmakers hoped it would cover millions of children across the country. To reach that goal, federal officials kicked in $24 billion over the first five years, and gave states flexibility to design what works best. If a state wished to expand its Medicaid program, so be it. If another state wanted to build an entirely new program, that was okay, too. Want to combine the two choices? Go for it. But all the creativity and thinking outside the box may soon come to a screeching halt, say many state officials, thanks to the Jan. 6 release of final SCHIP regulations. more