Latest KFF Health News Stories
Abandoning and replacing the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee — a panel that offers recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on physician reimbursement policy — would be an important first step toward re-stabilizing the nation’s primary care physician supply the U.S. health system.
With the House poised to vote this week on the repeal of the health law, there has been a flurry of commentary regarding what is at stake. So, in the interest of dispassionate evaluation, let us step back for one moment and review the situation.
Insurer and Hospital System: Why Can’t We Be Friends?
In North Carolina’s Research Triangle, two forces so often at odds — a major health care system and the region’s dominant insurer — announced that they would work together in the interest of better, cheaper medicine.
A New ‘Definition’ For Health Care Reform
Pursuing health reforms that transform current health insurance arrangements into aproaches based on defined contributions will set in motion a competitive dynamic from which all Americans would benefit.
Primary Care A Compelling Mission For Harvard Medical School Student
As part of an occasional series, First Person, Ishani Ganguli writes that medical school students like her have the opportunity to help the health care system by choosing to become primary care physicians.
The CBO Is Telling Us Something. Is Anybody Listening?
A signficant shortcoming in the current debate about whether the health overhaul really reduces the federal deficit is that it fails to recognize the underlying problem and address it.
Digital Divide Threatens Health Care
In a story from The Center For Public Integrity, experts worry low-income clinics cannot afford the electronic health records that others can and will fall behind as a result, potentially missing the Obama administration’s goal of going digital in the next five years.
Can We Stop Calling Them ‘Consumer Protections’ Now?
These supposed “consumer protections” are hurting millions of Americans by increasing the cost of insurance and the cost of hiring, as well as driving insurers out of business. They should be called what they really are: regulations that can hurt even more than they help.
The Avastin Decision: A Rational Decision Or Rationing?
Sometimes the noisiest voices in the health overhaul debate don’t make a good faith effort to acknowledge important scientific or policy-oriented nuances in their arguments. It’s happening again in the wake of a controversial regulatory ruling about a cancer drug.
Improving The Health Law In 2011: Realistic Ways To Reach Bipartisan Compromise
There are ways for Democrats and Republicans to agree to improve the new health care law in 2011.
Insurers Sometimes Reject Neonatal Intensive Care Costs
In these specialized units for premature infants or babies with special needs, the doctors and other personnel may not be under contract with an insurer’s network even though the hospital is covered.
Health Care Battles To Surge Anew In 2011: Jenny Gold
KHN reporters preview some of the big issues coming this year: KHN reporter Jenny Gold says marketplace consolidations, especially with a great number of hospital mergers, could change the health care landscape.
Insuring Your Health: Looking At The Changes 2011 Brings
Michelle Andrews speaks with KFF’s Jackie Judd about changes in lifetime insurance limits, keeping children insured, the new high-risk pools, rising health costs and consumers’ misperceptions about the overhaul.
Study Fuels Debate Over Widespread HIV Testing And Its Cost
The wider use of a cheap blood test could help cut the number of new HIV infections by more than 80,000 in the United States over 20 years, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force hasn’t come around to that view.
No Outrage, No Story In Dead Patients
A good story involves drama and conflict. It’s a great story when a federal judge with Republican ties nixing the president’s achievement in ensuring access to care for all. But a couple of reports about hospitals avoidably killing tens of thousands of Americans once they have that access to care apparently has little, if any, drama at all.
Video: Q&A with Michelle Andrews: Seeking Health Coverage When Traditional Coverage Is Out Of Reach
Michelle Andrews answers a question from a consumer about options for seeking health coverage when cost and other considerations put most other coverage out of reach.
Video: Q&A with Michelle Andrews: Preventive Health
Michelle Andrews answers a question from a consumer about why health plans are not touting more preventive health care to save on costs in the system. But, as Andrews details, new plans are going to have to provide many different sorts of preventive health services for free.
Video: Q&A with Michelle Andrews: Options To Get Health Coverage On Your Own
Michelle Andrews answers a question from a consumer about what to consider when looking to buy a health insurance plan.
Some Policies Restrict Coverage By Limiting Visits To The Doctor
The new health law eliminated lifetime and most annual dollar limits for consumers but some plans cut costs by covering only a defined number of doctor appointments, prescriptions or other services.
A Bipartisan Budget Will Require Bipartisan Health Care
It is essential that political leaders come together in a bipartisan fashion to put our government’s finances on more stable footing. But that won’t be done if the nation’s approach to health care is supported by only one of the two major political parties.
