Indiana

Ceera Moseby is a first-time mom and due early next year. Her pregnancy has been smooth so far. Still, the young, healthy Indianapolis woman has cause for concern.

“Me being a black woman, I am higher risk for death in that hospital," the 20-year-old said.

Physicians across the country have a message for the National Rifle Association: Gun violence is our concern. It's part of a battle being fought vigorously on Twitter in recent weeks.

Vice President Mike Pence often describes his conservative religious views as "Hoosier values." It's a consistent narrative in a state that, with the exception of 2008, has voted for Republican presidents since 1980.

The religious right in Indiana has long been a powerful political force. But now a progressive interfaith movement, called Faith In Indiana, is trying to challenge that foothold.

A number of states have tied Medicaid coverage to work requirements. But legal challenges have followed — a sucessful attempt to stop the program in Kentucky, an ongoing lawsuit in Arkansas and possibly more to come.

Across the Midwest, health care has emerged as one of the year’s biggest campaign flash points — in races from U.S. Senate to state attorney general.

Indiana’s maternal and infant mortality rates are far higher than the national average. Experts say one of the reasons is a lack of access to care providers. 

It’s a problem statewide, but it's especially felt in rural areas.

Driving Hours To Reach OB Care 

Deidra Firestone is expecting a child this year. This time, she says she’s blessed with a ‘normal pregnancy.’ But last year, she wasn't so lucky.

Indiana suspended a Medicaid policy that locked participants out of coverage for failing to confirm their eligibility for health care with the state.

Nearly one in five Hoosier children doesn't have regular access to healthy food.

At Richmond Community Schools in Wayne County, enough students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches that the entire school gets two free meals every school day. For many students, this means a day off school is a day without breakfast and lunch.

"When we have snow delays or no school, it breaks my heart to think of the kids who don’t get to eat that day," said Bridget Hazelbaker, communication coordinator for Richland Community Schools.

Nearly half a million low-income Kentuckians lost their dental and vision insurance this month after a federal judge halted Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver program.

Courtney Reimlinger was breastfeeding her week-old son last year when she felt a pain in her chest.

The pain was excruciating, the 23-year-old Indianapolis native remembers, much worse than the 10 hours in labor she'd spent a week before. It spread up her neck and into her head, and soon she was slipping in and out of consciousness.