Latest KFF Health News Stories
Insurer Centene: We Can Do Arkansas-Style Medicaid
Arkansas is the latest and perhaps best hope for those who want states resistant to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion to reconsider. Last week the Arkansas legislature approved a plan to give Medicaid beneficiaries money to buy individual policies from private insurers on the state’s health insurance exchange — the subsidized, online markeplaces due to […]
New Website Will Disclose Health Industry Payments To Doctors
For the first time, the government will make information about financial relationships between doctors, teaching hospitals and drug manufacturers publicly available. To comply with a provision in the Affordable Care Act, drug and device manufacturers, along with group purchasing organizations, will have to disclose all of their payments and other compensation to physicians and teaching hospitals. Those who […]
Video: What Insurance Exchanges Mean For Consumers
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/assets/swf/CSPANPlayer.swf?pid=312284-5 KHN’s Jenny Gold appeared on the C-SPAN program, Washington Journal, to discuss the insurance exchanges where consumers will be able to purchase coverage beginning Oct. 1. Watch the above video to learn more about these new marketplaces, or read KHN’s FAQ on exchanges and Jenny’s recent story on marketing of the exchanges to consumers.
Boston Couple Faces Amputation Rehab, Together
Only the most seriously injured of the 188 marathon bombing patients remain hospitalized. Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky Downes are among them. The couple was cheering runners near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the explosions threw them apart. Patrick and Jessica each lost the lower part of their left legs. Friends are having […]
Despite Win, UnitedHealth Criticizes Medicare Rates, Eyes Pruning Business
If the Obama administration expected the biggest health insurance company to give thanks for this month’s decision to reverse cuts to private Medicare plans, it was wrong. UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley said Thursday that Medicare Advantage rates are still far too low and that the company may shrink its business of managing care for […]
Beginning End Of Life Care At The Dinner Table
Michael Hebb wants you to pass the butter, and then talk about passing on. As the founder of “Let’s Have Dinner and Talk About Death,” he urged Americans to engage in a conversation about how they want to die, a conversation that could change the high cost of caring for the terminally ill and grant patients […]
Bipartisan Center Offers Plan To Reduce Health Spending
Medicare beneficiaries would have access to better coordinated medical care and the current Medicare physician payment formula would be scrapped as part of a health care cost containment plan the Bipartisan Policy Center unveiled Thursday. The plan offers more than 50 recommendations that would cut the federal deficit by about $560 billion over the next […]
Jonathan Bush Makes Case For Entrepreneurs In Health Care At TEDMED
Jonathan Bush wants to know why entrepreneurs can come up with an entire Starbucks-style language and culture for coffee but have little traction in health care. “Don’t jam the entrepreneurs,” said Bush, during a high energy, ebullient talk that had the TEDMED audience on its feet by the end. A scion of the Bush political […]
Report: Health Law Tax Credit Could Benefit 26 Million
As experts focus on the cost of requiring everybody to have health coverage next year, a new study highlights the broad reach of federal subsidies to help people pay for it. Nearly 26 million Americans will be eligible for tax credits under the Affordable Care Act to partly offset the cost of insurance in online […]
The Medicare Budget Cuts No One Likes
Just in case the Obama administration didn’t know it already, cutting Medicare is hard to do. During a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday on President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget, both Republicans who have sought major changes to entitlements, and Democrats, who have vowed to preserve the programs, expressed misgivings. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., accused […]
Patient Satisfaction May Not Be A Good Indicator Of Surgical Quality, Study Finds
You may have found your doctor to be a great communicator, your hospital room clean and quiet and your pain well controlled. Yet a study finds these opinions are not barometers of whether your hospital’s surgical care is any good. The study, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University medical and public health schools, […]
Innovators Preach Health Care Change At TEDMED
There was a buzz in The Hive yesterday. That’s what TEDMED, a health care and medical technology summit, calls the chic tent of 50 health care innovators who gave hands-on tours of their mobile apps and medical technology. Some of the 1,800 conference attendees lined up Tuesday for a Smartphone Physical, or to add their ideas […]
Mississippi’s Lone Abortion Clinic Is Still Open And Still Controversial
Protesters clashed Tuesday outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, which won a victory in federal court that allows the facility to continue to operate, at least for now. The legal victory for the clinic came Monday when U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan III temporarily blocked a state law that […]
Democratic Lawmakers Seek To Restore Drugmaker Rebates For ‘Dual Eligibles’
Updated at 5:25 p.m. Senate and House lawmakers unveiled legislation Tuesday that would require brand-name drugmakers to pay rebates to Medicare for drugs used by some of the program’s low-income and disabled beneficiaries. Photo by Karl Eisenhower/KHN The legislation would require drug companies to provide rebates to the federal government for drugs used by a […]
Auditors: Medicare Could Save Millions By Limiting Advance Payments To Insurers
Medicare could earn up to $111 million annually if it limited insurers’ ability to retain investment earnings on the billions they are paid through the prescription drug program, according to a government reportout today. That’s because Medicare prepays the private insurers approximately 20 days before the insurers pay their pharmacy bills and does not require them to return […]
Got alarm fatigue? Some doctors and nurses do, according to The Joint Commission, a nonprofit hospital accrediting organization. In their latest Sentinel Event Alert, issued April 8, the commission highlighted the dangers that result when doctors and other health professionals develop “alarm fatigue” or become desensitized and immune to alarm sounds set off by medical […]
Programs Help Independent Artists Access Health Care
Updated at 10:50 a.m. When Corynn Stoltenberg, then 31, found out she was at high risk for cancer at a health fair in Minnesota, she hadn’t been to the doctor in 10 years. As a dancer and theater artist who supported herself by working at coffee shops and cleaning houses, she often was without health […]
Wait For Obamacare Price Tags Could Be Months
Last week Vermont became the first state to provide a glimpse of how expensive individual health insurance might be under the Affordable Care Act. Proposed rates there, while of questionable relevance to the rest of the country because of the state’s unusual insurance market, showed little change from current prices and reassured health law supporters […]
Harkin Accuses Administration Of ‘Robbing Peter To Pay Paul’
A Democratic senator chastised the White House Thursday for raiding the health law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund to pay for a program to help the uninsured sign up for coverage in new insurance marketplaces. “This is robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions […]
Minnesota Hospital Merger Talks Derail
Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services says it will focus on finding a permanent CEO now that rural health care giant Sanford announced Wednesday that it felt “unwelcome” and was cutting off merger discussions with Fairview. Fairview is one of Minnesota’s largest health systems and owns the University of Minnesota’s main teaching hospital. Sanford runs clinics in […]
