Latest News On Disparities

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Even With Senate Control, Democrats Will Need Buy-In From GOP on Key Health Priorities

KFF Health News Original

With a majority too small to eliminate the filibuster, Democrats will not have enough votes in the Senate to pass many of their plans without Republicans and will also have only a razor-thin majority in the House. This combination could doom many Democratic health care proposals, like offering Americans a government-sponsored public insurance option, and complicate efforts to pass further pandemic relief.

High-Poverty Neighborhoods Bear the Brunt of COVID’s Scourge

KFF Health News Original

COVID infection rates in California are consistently higher in low-income neighborhoods than more affluent areas, according to an analysis by ZIP code. Our findings underscore the heightened risks borne by millions of low-wage workers whose jobs are deemed essential.

California Lawmakers to Newsom: Give All Immigrants Health Coverage

KFF Health News Original

Given the pandemic’s disproportionate hit on minority communities, two Democratic lawmakers are pushing Newsom to agree to offer health care to all unauthorized immigrants. They planned to unveil legislation Monday — and a new strategy to make it happen.

What Doctors Aren’t Always Taught: How to Spot Racism in Health Care

KFF Health News Original

Activists across the country are demanding that medical schools eliminate the use of race as a diagnostic tool, recognize how systemic racism harms patients and reckon with some of medicine’s racist history.

The Trump Medicaid Record: Big Goals, Yet Few Successes

KFF Health News Original

The Trump administration sought to shrink the federal-state health program for low-income Americans and give states more flexibility. But Democrats and the courts thwarted most of those efforts.

HHS Plan to Improve Rural Health Focuses on Better Broadband, Telehealth Services

KFF Health News Original

The proposal details a wide-ranging agenda to remedy the gaps in health care and myriad challenges in rural America. In addition to more telehealth options, it includes shifts in hospital payments and expanded funding for school-based mental health programs.

Inside the Race to Build a Better $500 Emergency Ventilator

KFF Health News Original

Inspired to help during the COVID pandemic, a volunteer SWAT team of engineering and medical talent combines old-fashioned problem-solving and advanced 3D printing — but will it actually help?

America’s Obesity Epidemic Threatens Effectiveness of Any COVID Vaccine

KFF Health News Original

Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies are less effective for obese people, leaving them more vulnerable to serious illness. As scientists race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, experts say obesity could prove an impediment — a sobering prospect for a nation in which nearly half of all adults are obese.