Latest News On Children’s Health

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Estrés pandémico, pandillas y miedo impulsaron un aumento de tiroteos adolescentes

KFF Health News Original

Investigaciones muestran que los adolescentes expuestos a la violencia armada tienen el doble de probabilidades que otros de cometer un delito violento grave dentro de los dos años luego del trauma, lo que perpetúa un ciclo difícil de romper.

California Offers Bipartisan Road Map for Protecting Kids Online Even as Big Tech Fights Back

KFF Health News Original

Last year, state lawmakers adopted the country’s toughest online privacy restrictions. The law offers Congress a path forward on federal protections even as it serves as a cautionary tale for taking on Big Tech.

Schools Struggle With Lead in Water While Awaiting Federal Relief

KFF Health News Original

President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that federal funds will pay to replace lead pipes in hundreds of thousands of schools and child care centers. In the meantime, schools are dealing with high lead levels now.

Guns Are the Biggest Public Health Threat Kids Face. Why Aren’t They Getting the Message?

KFF Health News Original

Today’s public service announcements on gun safety feel somewhat sanitized. It’s time to act with the same kind of visceral public campaign that helped de-glorify smoking. Would filmmakers commit to making action movies without guns, just as filmmakers stopped making smoking glamorous in films?

California’s Massive Medicaid Program Works for Some, but Fails Many Others

KFF Health News Original

Medi-Cal serves more than one-third of the state’s population — offering a dizzying range of care to a diverse population. In the new “Faces of Medi-Cal” series, California Healthline will assess the program’s strengths and weaknesses through the lives and experiences of its enrollees.

Surprise-Billing Law Loophole: When ‘Out of Network’ Doesn’t Quite Mean Out of Network

KFF Health News Original

Billing experts and lawmakers are playing catch-up as providers find ways to get around new surprise-billing laws, leaving patients like Danielle Laskey of Washington state with big bills for emergency care.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': The Kids Are Not OK

Podcast

A new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that teenagers, particularly girls, are reporting all-time high rates of violence and profound mental distress. Meanwhile, both sides in the abortion debate are anxiously waiting for a district court decision in Texas that could effectively revoke the FDA’s 22-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more.

It Takes a Village: Foster Program Is a New Model of Care for Indigenous Children

KFF Health News Original

A foster care program on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota is attracting attention from officials elsewhere as they search for ways to reduce trauma inflicted on Indigenous families, who’ve faced generations of high rates of family separation.

Montana Lawmakers Seek More Information About Governor’s HEART Fund

KFF Health News Original

Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s Healing and Ending Addiction Through Recovery and Treatment fund has spent $5.2 million since 2021. With a proposed increase, providers and lawmakers alike want to tap into the money.

A Baby Spent 36 Days in an In-Network NICU. Why Did the Hospital Next Door Send a Bill?

KFF Health News Original

A baby spent more than a month in a Chicago NICU. A big bill revealed she was treated by out-of-network doctors from the children’s hospital next door. Her parents were charged despite a state law protecting patients from such out-of-network billing — and sent to collections when they didn’t pay up.

Unmet Needs: Critics Cite Failures in Health Care for Vulnerable Foster Children

KFF Health News Original

More states are moving to specialized managed-care contracts solely to handle medical and behavioral services for foster kids. But child advocates, foster parents, and even state officials say these and other care arrangements are shortchanging foster kids’ health needs.

After a Brief Pandemic Reprieve, Rural Workers Return to Life Without Paid Leave

KFF Health News Original

Coastal and politically progressive states have passed stronger paid sick and family leave policies, but many workers in rural America are left out, facing tough decisions when choosing between caring for themselves or sick family members or keeping their jobs.