Latest KFF Health News Stories
Hospital Giant Sutter Health Faces Legal Reckoning Over Medical Pricing
A long-awaited class-action lawsuit against Sutter is set to open this month in San Francisco Superior Court. The hospital giant stands accused of violating California’s antitrust laws by leveraging its market power to drive out competition and overcharge patients.
Listen: Health Officials Warn People To Stop Vaping
California Healthline reporter Ana Ibarra appeared Monday on WNYC to discuss the recent outbreak of mysterious lung diseases related to vaping, including 60 possible cases in California.
Opinion writers weigh in on these health issues and others.
Following Tumultuous Week, Governor And California Lawmaker Reach Agreement On Vaccination Bill
Some of the amendments sought by Gov. Gavin Newsom at the 11th hour would significantly weaken the bill, authored by state Sen. Richard Pan, but other changes would bring new scrutiny to exemptions written by doctors who have faced disciplinary action. The changes would include Newsom’s proposal to grandfather in all existing medical exemptions before Jan. 1.
Media outlets report on news from Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, California, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon, Texas and Massachusetts.
Nationwide, women who traveled from another state received at least 44,860 abortions in 2017, the most recent year available, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from 41 states. Thirteen states saw a rise in the number of out-of-state women having abortions between 2012 and 2017.
Google Bans Ads For ‘Untested, Deceptive Treatments,’ Including Many Stem Cell, Gene Therapies
Some treatments have resulted in severe injuries, including blindness, and are imperiling the reputation of a promising industry, experts say. Scientists liken procedures promising to cure diseases like macular degeneration and ALS to modern snake oil. In other public health news: HIV, diets, fatherhood, transplants, texting dangers, supplements, diabetes, heart disease, and Sjogren’s syndrome.
This is the first study to focus on cardiovascular care, which is not currently covered by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The study urges continued long-term monitoring of the first responders.
The study also found that in counties where health insurance is lacking, and in those where military veterans represent a larger proportion of the population, suicide rates were higher over the 18-year period studied.
While ambulances are normally supposed to take emergency patients to the closest facility that offers that right kind of care, a new study finds that when it comes to minority patients that’s not always the case. One possible explanation: Patients or their families may choose to go to a more distant hospital because it’s where they go for routine primary care.
Rust Belt Hospital Closures Kick Economically Fragile Areas Hard When They’re Already Down
Hospitals are closing at startling rates in rural and economically depressed areas that are already struggling to recover from financial downturns. Other hospital news comes out of New York and Florida.
Drugmakers have come under intense fire following news of more deaths of patients rationing their insulin. Novo Nordisk is the latest company to try to address the high costs of their drug. The company will start a new cash discount program that will allow many American patients to buy a month’s supply for $99 starting next year.
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals would pay $24 million in cash to two Ohio counties, as well as donate $6 million in drugs that include addiction treatment medications. The tentative agreement — which applies only to the two counties and does not resolve other legal claims against Mallinckrodt — comes out of a flurry of intensive bargaining in recent weeks among groups of defendants and plaintiffs in opioid cases nationwide. In other news on the national drug crisis: what a Purdue Pharma bankruptcy looks like for defendants; the epidemic as an existential crisis to a tribe; the controversy of safe injection sites; and more.
Some investigators have zeroed in on vitamin E oil as a possible culprit to the outbreak of cases across the country, but other experts remain skeptical that it’s any one ingredient that’s causing the illness. Federal health officials are warning users that the riskiest behavior is using vaping products bought on the street instead of from a retailer. Meanwhile, media outlets round-up what the symptoms are, how many cases have cropped up in which states, what public health officials are doing about the outbreak, and more.
Kamala Harris Courts Veteran Vote With Plan That Would Expand Their Access To Health Care
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said that, if she is elected president, by the end of her first term the VA would expand access to health care and housing assistance to the more than 500,000 veterans with other-than-honorable discharges. “People with PTSD tend to act out. They tend to self-medicate. Which means they’re going to be on drugs or they may be an alcoholic. And then they’re going to get into fights and they have a really short fuse. And guess what happens? All of a sudden you don’t qualify for VA,” Harris said.
“We’re tackling reducing health care costs, and you’re going to have insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, a whole variety of people affected who have misgivings about it,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Lawmakers in both chambers are pursuing health care wins ahead of next year’s elections.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s waiting to see what President Donald Trump comes up with and that he won’t hold votes on gun legislation that he thinks won’t get anywhere. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have sent a letter to the president urging him not to squander this momentum for regulations by “by acceding to NRA-backed proposals or other weak ideas that will do nothing to stop the continuing, horrific spread of gun violence and may, in some cases, actually make our communities less safe.”
First Edition: September 9, 2019
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Estados promulgan leyes para frenar los precios de los medicamentos
En lo que va del año, 33 han promulgado un récord de 51 leyes para confrontar los precios, la accesibilidad y el acceso a los medicamentos.
Millions Of Diabetes Patients Are Missing Out On Medicare’s Nutrition Help
Health experts say the little-used benefit represents a lost opportunity for older adults to improve their health — and for the program to save money by preventing costly complications from diabetes and chronic kidney disease.