Nick Ehli, Kaiser Health News

In states like Montana where courts have ruled that their constitutions’ explicit privacy rights extend to the right to have an abortion, the procedure would continue to be legal even if the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling is overturned.

Montana's largest hospital recently signed employment contracts with two dozen foreign nurses. Nationwide, a backlog of 5,000 international nurses await approval to enter the U.S.

Nationally, KHN and The Associated Press have documented that more than 300 public health leaders, weary of abuse and of their expertise being questioned, have resigned or retired as the country struggles to recover from the worst pandemic in a century.

Billings Clinic in Montana is past the tipping point as it looks for places to add intensive care unit beds and is on the cusp of rationing care to deal with the surge of sick covid patients in a state with significant anti-vaccination sentiment.