Author

Sarah Ladd

Sarah Ladd

Sarah Ladd is a Louisville-based journalist from West Kentucky who's covered everything from crime to higher education. She spent nearly two years on the metro breaking news desk at The Courier Journal. In 2020, she started reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and has covered health ever since. As the Kentucky Lantern's health reporter, she focuses on mental health, LGBTQ+ issues, children's welfare, COVID-19 and more.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Kentucky Senate advances bill that would require Medicaid to cover some midwife services

By: - February 16, 2024

FRANKFORT — Kentucky Medicaid would begin covering licensed certified professional midwife (LCPM) services under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate. Senate Bill 89 passed 34-3 after little discussion.? Primary sponsor Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer, R-Alexandria, said the legislation is a chance to “innovate” in Kentucky.? Under her bill, she said, a Medicaid-insured patient […]

Anti-hunger advocates condemn bill to close ‘wildly abused loopholes’ in SNAP

By: - February 15, 2024

FRANKFORT — A bill that backers say is intended to encourage more Kentuckians to join the workforce but which advocates warn could lead to food insecurity passed out of a House committee Thursday along party lines.? Among other things, House Bill 367 seeks to give the General Assembly power over decisions about work requirements for […]

‘Victims before perpetrators:’ Senate passes bill to try certain juveniles as adults?

By: - February 14, 2024

FRANKFORT — A bill making it easier for Kentucky to try certain juveniles as adults passed out of the Senate Wednesday 25-9-1 after a heated debate.? Under Senate Bill 20, Kentuckians would be transferred to circuit court for trial as an adult if, among other things, they were at least 15 years old at the […]

Republican lawmaker seeks to put hope on horizon for early childhood, Kentucky parents

By: - February 13, 2024

FRANKFORT — When Jessie Schook, the vice president of workforce and economic development for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, tells people she is expecting her first child in June, many want to know: “Are you on a (child care) list?”? The wait to get a new baby into a child care center can […]

Republican senator will ask Kentucky lawmakers to put $300 million into strengthening child care

By: - February 12, 2024

Republican state Sen. Danny Carroll has announced his anticipated child care legislation will come with a $300 million, two-year price tag.? The ambitious proposal, called the Horizons Act, would have Kentucky spend far more than the $104 million over the biennium approved by the House for the child care sector and the $141 million that […]

Bill helping ‘kinship care’ families wins unanimous Senate support

By: - February 8, 2024

FRANKFORT — A bill aimed at giving more financial help to “kinship care” Kentuckians who are raising a minor relative — such as a grandchild or niece — passed unanimously out of the Senate on Thursday.? Senate Bill 151 would allow kinship caregivers to change their placement status from temporary custody to a child-specific foster […]

Bill would give health care providers criminal immunity for medical mistakes

By: - February 8, 2024

FRANKFORT — In March 2020, as the novel coronavirus swept through the country, Ellen Tinker had a “wake up” moment.? Living in Washington D.C. at the time and studying political science at George Washington University, Tinker remembers thinking: “I felt like I was going to wake up one day in the middle of my life […]

‘Momnibus’ maternal health bill moves forward in Kentucky legislature?

By: - February 8, 2024

FRANKFORT — The maternal health bill dubbed “Momnibus” passed out of the House Committee on Health Services Thursday and can move to the floor for a full vote.? Momnibus — or House Bill 10 — came out of a bipartisan summer working group of female lawmakers who looked into Kentucky’s dismal maternal mortality and how […]

Senate bill could spare kinship care families in Kentucky from making a costly decision

By: - February 6, 2024

FRANKFORT — When Kentuckians learn that a grandchild, nephew, niece or other young relative is being removed from an unsafe home, some families make a decision that later robs them of needed resources.? That could change under a bill that passed unanimously out of the Senate Families and Children Committee Tuesday.? Many people who step […]

House approves bill to improve tracking of data on sudden deaths related to epilepsy

By: - February 6, 2024

Kentucky data could aid research into deaths related to epilepsy under bill headed for House FRANKFORT — A bill that could help Kentucky gather better data on sudden unexpected death of someone with epilepsy — called SUDEP — passed 95-0 out of the House on Tuesday.? House Bill 166 would require that autopsies determine, at […]

Kentucky House advances two preventive, diagnostic health bills?

By: - February 5, 2024

The Kentucky House unanimously passed two health bills on Monday that are aimed at making childhood vaccines more accessible and detecting cancer early.? House Bill 115 would get rid of insurance copays and cost sharing for diagnostic cancer screenings like mammograms. It passed 93-0 with no debate.? Sponsor and former nurse Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, […]

People who were in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport Jan. 27-29 could have measles exposure

By: - February 5, 2024

Kentuckians who traveled through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29 may have been exposed to measles, the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services said Monday.? Kentucky has had no confirmed cases of the highly contagious disease this year. But an Ohio resident with a confirmed case traveled through the Cincinnati/Northern […]