Latest KFF Health News Stories
If The Health Care Overhaul Goes Down, Could Medicare Follow?
A growing number of health experts are warning of potential collateral damage if the Supreme Court strikes down the entire 2010 Affordable Care Act: potential chaos in the Medicare program.
States Consider Limiting Patient Costs For Physical, Speech, Occupational Therapy
Advocates want curbs on what consumers pay toward physical, occupation and speech therapy visits. Insurers say that could raise premiums.
Some Women’s Groups See Another Agenda In Attacks On Contraceptive Coverage
Opponents of the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate emphasize religious freedom, but others say the real issue is birth control.
Head Of Community Health Center Group Critiques KHN Story
This letter, from Tom Van Coverden, President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers, is in response to Wednesday’s KHN story Community Health Centers Under Pressure to Improve Care.
To determine the quality of care the nearly 1,200 federally funded health centers provide to more than 20 million people, Kaiser Health News used the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to obtain data showing how individual health centers performed in 2010 based on six patient care measures: controlling blood sugar of diabetics and blood pressure […]
Community Health Centers Under Pressure to Improve Care
Quality is uneven at federally funded clinics that treat millions of poor people.
Rural Georgia Center Relies on Educators, Electronic Records To Boost Patients’ Health
But some patients still struggle to find specialists.
Interactive Chart: Quality Of Care At Community Health Centers
Look up how your local community health center scores on six measures of clinical performance, as evaluated by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.
Critics Say Proposed Rule Would Make Millions Ineligible For Health Insurance Subsidies
The policy would have the greatest impact on women and children.
Medicare To Tie Doctors’ Pay To Quality, Cost Of Care
A little-noticed provision of the health law calls for increasing reimbursements to doctors who provide quality care at lower cost and reducing payments to physicians who run up costs without better results.
Report: Mass. Health Law No ‘Budget Buster’
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation finds that the state spends $91 million more per year, or 1.4 percent of the state budget, for near-universal health insurance coverage. “That’s a very tiny additional cost to taxpayers for huge benefits,” says MTF President Michael Widmer.
Massachusetts Health Reform, From The Front Lines
Massachusetts Medical Society President Dr. Lynda Young offers her views on how the practice of medicine has changed in the six years since the state’s health reform law took effect and how issues of health care costs continue to be an everyday concern.
Massachusetts On Track To ‘Crack The Code’ For Health Care Cost Control
As his state’s health reforms mark their sixth anniversary, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick explains how he hopes to confront the next health reform challenges — controlling health care costs and overhauling the payment system.
The Next Health Reform Move: Overhauling Payment Practices
As Massachusetts policy makers and stakeholders focus on efforts to control health care costs through payment reform, Health Care for All’s Paul Williams outlines the considerations that are crucial to ensuring that patients experience a higher quality of care, and the most vulnerable are protected.
Massachusetts Health Reform: On The Right Path
Lynn Nicholas, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, outlines how tackling health care cost, payment and quality issues is the next necessary step in order to make the state’s reform achievements sustainable.
Different Takes: How Massachusetts Can Control Health Care Costs
Kaiser Health News asked Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, Massachusetts Hospital Association President Lynn Nichols, Health Care For All’s Paul Williams and Massachusetts Medical Society’s Lynda Young about how the state can reform the health care payment system to control costs.
ACOs Multiply As Medicare Announces 27 New Ones
A key provision of the health law supports the creation of organizations intended to improve quality of care and to restrain rising costs.
In Kansas, No Consensus On How To End ‘Dental Deserts’
In an ongoing disagreement over how to solve dental care access problems in rural parts of the state, there is one thing no one disputes: the great need.
Mississippi Legislature Passes Abortion Clinic Bill
The bill will require any doctor performing abortions in the state to be a board-certified OB-GYN with admitting privileges at a local hospital, which could make staffing the state’s sole abortion clinic very difficult.
Minnesota Medicaid HMOs Refund $73M To State, Feds
Four big Minnesota managed-care plans will repay state and federal taxpayers an estimated $73 million as part of a deal the HMOs made with Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration last year.
