The University of Illinois Board of Trustees voted earlier this month to increase health insurance premiums by more than 30 percent for students at its Urbana-Champaign campus. 

Several Democrats running for governor of Illinois are proposing the state enact universal healthcare. J.B. Pritzker is the latest to come out with a plan.

Nurse Catherine “Bizz” Grimes moves like her name sounds: at a frenetic pace. She darts across the hall from the prenatal diagnosis clinic at Indiana University Health University Hospital in Indianapolis, sits down at her cubicle, puts on her headset over curly white blonde hair and starts dialing.

Americans really, really don't like the Senate bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Only 17 percent of U.S. adults approve of the health care bill, according to a recent NPR/Marist/PBS NewsHour poll. In fact, a majority of Americans now approve of the ACA, also known as Obamacare — but just nine months ago, that wasn't true.

Medicaid is the government health care program for the poor. That's the shorthand explanation. But Medicaid is so much more than that — which is why it's become the focal point of the battle in Washington to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.