Latest KFF Health News Stories
PCORI, NIH Announce Plans For $30 Million Study On Falls
The nation’s largest and most intensive study of how to best prevent seniors’ injuries from falling will begin next year under a $30 million grant announced Wednesday by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Institutes of Health. A diverse group of 6,000 adults over age 75 or their caregivers will be recruited around […]
Medicaid Enrollment Surges By More Than 1 Million In April
Medicaid enrollment surged by more than 1 million people in April, bringing the total growth in the state-federal health insurance program for the poor since September to about 6 million, the Obama administration said Wednesday. The increase is significant because it shows Medicaid enrollment continued to grow even after the new state and federal online […]
Medicare Could Save Billions By Scrapping Random Drug Plan Assignment
A new study finds that Medicare is spending billions of dollars more than it needs to on prescription drugs for low-income seniors and disabled beneficiaries. In 2013, an estimated 10 million people who participate in the Medicare prescription drug program, known as Part D, received government subsidies to help pay for that coverage. They account […]
Pre-Existing Condition Bans – Are They Really Gone?
“Welcome to Cigna,” said the letter, dated May 16, on behalf of my new employer, the Kaiser Family Foundation. They were placing me on a one-year waiting period for any pre-existing conditions. Seriously? Wasn’t the health law was supposed to end that? “We have reviewed the evidence of prior creditable coverage provided by you and/or […]
Most Americans Say The Health Law Has Not Affected Their Families: Poll
More than four years after enactment of the health law, six in 10 Americans say neither they nor their families have been affected by the sweeping measure, according to a poll released Friday. Among those who say the law has impacted them, Republicans are much more likely to say their families have been hurt by the […]
‘National Dialogue’ Urged On Cost Of New Hepatitis C Drug
The outcry continues over the $1,000-a-pill hepatitis C drug made by California-based Gilead Sciences. While the drug is a significant advance over older treatments for the viral liver disease, the price set by the company “represents an abuse of market power,” said John Rother, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, which […]
Can Employers Dump Workers To Health Exchanges? Yes, For A Price
How to expand Americans’ health insurance choices under the Affordable Care Act without sabotaging employer coverage? The Obama administration is still working to get the balance right. The latest tweak from the Internal Revenue Service essentially prohibits employers from giving workers tax-free dollars to buy policies in the online public marketplaces created by the health law. […]
Minnesota, Not Florida, Not Hawaii, Is Healthiest State For Seniors
“Minnesota Nice” might be the key to good health for seniors. America’s Health Rankings Senior Report rated Minnesota the healthiest state in the nation for adults aged 65 and over — beating out Hawaii. And that retiree and snowbird haven, Florida? It came in 28th. What could put Minnesota, which just weathered arguably the harshest winter […]
Single-Payer Advocates Hit Capitol With New Sense Of Reality
Advocates for a single-payer “Medicare for all” health system are fanning out across Capitol Hill this week, lobbying members of Congress. But years of mostly fruitless struggles – and watching the intense opposition to the much less sweeping Affordable Care Act – appears to have left them with a much more clear-eyed view of what […]
Study: Limited Competition Raised Obamacare Prices
Many insurers only dipped a toe into the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces for their first year. Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers, offered 2014 plans to individuals in fewer than half a dozen states. Humana is only in a little more than a dozen states. The biggest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, didn’t offer any policies […]
Survey: Many Women Unaware How Health Law Benefits Them
A large number of women face significant barriers to health care, and while the health law will likely help them get services, some are unaware of the benefits already in effect, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) Intended as a […]
Medicare Reverses Denial Of Costly Treatment For Hepatitis C Patient
Walter Bianco, an Arizona man denied access to new drugs to cure his hepatitis C infection, will get the costly medications after all. After Kaiser Health News and NPR described his plight in a story that aired Monday, federal Medicare officials said they would look into the case. Bianco’s appeal of an earlier denial had […]
Study: Diabetes Afflicts 1 In 3 Hospitalized Patients Over 34 In California
In California, roughly one in three hospitalized people over 34 years old has diabetes, increasing the complexity and cost of their care, according to a report released Thursday. Hospitalizations for patients with diabetes on average cost about $2,200 more than for patients who didn’t have the disease, regardless of the reason they were admitted, according […]
Do Seniors Have Too Many Medicare Plans To Choose From?
Most seniors face a dizzying array of options each year when it comes time to choose a Medicare health or prescription drug plan. Beneficiaries can select from an average of 18 health plans and 31 prescription drug plans. In South Florida, they have 88 plan choices altogether. While choice may sound like a good thing, […]
Harvard: Overused Medical Services Cost Medicare Billions
Medical overtreatment is the inverse of former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography: while easy to define in concept, it can be hard to know it when you see it. A treatment that is appropriate for one patient can also be unnecessary or even counterproductive for another, depending on the patient’s condition. This […]
States’ Medicaid Decisions Leave Health Centers, Patients In Lurch
More than 1 million patients who use federally funded community health centers will remain uninsured because they live in one of 24 states that chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to a study released Friday by researchers at George Washington University. Most of those patients live in the South, because […]
IRS Urged To Broaden Preventive Coverage In High-Deductible Plans
High deductible health plans paired with tax-free savings accounts — increasingly common in job-based insurance and long a staple for those who buy their own coverage – pose financial difficulties for people with chronic health problems. That’s because they have to pay the annual deductible, which could be $1,250 or more, before most of their medications […]
During Confirmation Hearing, Burwell Pledges Support For CHIP
Advocates of the Children’s Health Insurance Program cheered Thursday when President Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services said she supports continued funding for the program, which covers about 8 million low-income children whose families’ income exceeds Medicaid’s eligibility guidelines. During a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing, Sylvia […]
Arizona Offers ‘Sneak Peak’ At Costs Of Shifting Kids Off CHIP
Families of Arizona children who were forced to switch from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to private plans sold in the federal marketplace are likely paying more and getting fewer benefits, according to a study released Thursday. Millions of families who are ineligible for Medicaid could soon face the same choice if Congress chooses […]
Report: Federal Exchange A Comparative Bargain
Sometimes there really are economies of scale. And the nation’s health insurance exchanges may be a case in point. As rocky as its rollout was, it cost the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, an average of $647 of federal tax dollars to sign up each enrollee, according to a new report. It cost an average of $1,503 […]
