Latest KFF Health News Stories
Nursing Home Residents Overlooked in Scramble for Covid Antibody Treatments
A federal allocation plan meant to ensure equitable distribution of powerful monoclonal antibody treatments for high-risk patients fails to prioritize nursing home residents, a population that remains particularly vulnerable even after vaccination.
California Law Aims to Strengthen Access to Mental Health Services
The law doesn’t take effect until July, but its passage should force insurers to expand their rosters of therapists. Here’s how you can challenge your health plan’s mental health services until then.
Journalists Explore Shadow Pandemics of Hospital Violence and Grieving Children
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
If Congress Adds Dental Coverage to Medicare, Should All Seniors Get It?
Health equity advocates see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide a dental benefit to millions of older Americans as Congress considers expanding Medicare services. But complicating that push is a debate over how many of the more than 60 million Medicare recipients should receive dental coverage.
Texas Abortion Law Gets Speedy High-Court Hearing Monday
The Supreme Court justices, who accepted the case only 10 days before the arguments will be made, may skirt the issue of abortion and concentrate instead on the legality of the law’s unusual tack to let private citizens enforce it.
What’s Scarier Than Covid? Halloween Health Haikus
A huge thank you to our readers who participated in our third annual KHN Halloween Haiku Contest. Based on a review by our expert panel of judges, we unmask the winner and serve a sampling of finalists.
ERs Are Swamped With Seriously Ill Patients, Although Many Don’t Have Covid
Certain patients who couldn’t get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Social-Spending ‘Framework’ Pulls Back on Key Health Pledges
President Joe Biden unveiled a compromise “Build Back Better” framework shortly before taking off for key meetings in Europe, but it’s unclear whether the framework can win the votes of all Democrats in the House and Senate, and it leaves out some of the party’s health priorities, notably significant provisions to lower prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, younger children may soon be eligible for covid vaccines. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
Democrats’ Plans to Expand Medicare Benefits May Pinch Advantage Plans’ Funding
As lawmakers weigh new spending provisions to cover dental, hearing and vision services for Medicare beneficiaries, a group supporting Medicare Advantage plans is airing commercials that raise concerns about the funding for those private plans.
Medicare Punishes 2,499 Hospitals for High Readmissions
The federal government’s hospital penalty program finishes its first decade by lowering payments to nearly half the nation’s hospitals for readmitting too many Medicare patients within a month. Penalties, though often small, are credited with helping reduce the number of patients returning for another Medicare stay within 30 days.
Pharma Campaign Cash Delivered to Key Lawmakers With Surgical Precision
With an eye to shutting down Medicare drug price negotiations, drug companies and their lobbying groups gave roughly $1.6 million in the first six months of 2021, with Democrats edging closer than they have in a decade to Republicans’ total haul.
How Billing Turns a Routine Birth Into a High-Cost Emergency
“Obstetrical emergency departments” are a new feature in some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask the parents of Baby Gus.
Medicare Plans’ ‘Free’ Dental, Vision, Hearing Benefits Come at a Cost
The ads for supplemental Medicare Advantage plans describe vision and dental benefits, even grocery discounts and food deliveries. But look at the fine print.
Atención primaria directa con un toque de Robin Hood
St. Luke’s Family Practice es una respuesta local a los problemas sistémicos de la sanidad estadounidense, como el agotamiento de los médicos, la insatisfacción de los pacientes y el hecho de que millones de personas sigan careciendo de asistencia.
Analysis: A Procedure That Cost $1,775 in New York Was $350 in Maryland. Here’s Why.
The state’s unique health system controls what hospitals can charge for services.
Direct Primary Care, With a Touch of Robin Hood
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
Understaffed State Psychiatric Facilities Leave Mental Health Patients in Limbo
The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.
In Maine, Vaccine Mandate for EMTs Stresses Small-Town Ambulance Crews
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it’s lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can’t function if even just a few people quit.
Fresh Faces, Fewer Tools: Meet the New Bosses Fighting Covid
Local health officials who quit or were forced out during the pandemic have been replaced by people who must face an increasingly polarized public with fewer powers than their predecessors.
3 States Limit Nursing Home Profits in Bid to Improve Care
Following the devastating impact of covid-19 on nursing homes, state lawmakers want to be sure that government and private payments primarily go to improve care and staffing.
