Latest KFF Health News Stories
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Still Waiting for That Trump Health Plan
President Donald Trump keeps promising a comprehensive plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. And he keeps not delivering. Meanwhile, members of Congress and White House officials seem unable to agree on a new COVID-19 relief bill. And Missouri becomes the sixth state where voters approved a Medicaid expansion ballot measure. Tami Luhby of CNN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Hospital Merger in Washington State Stokes Fears About Catholic Limits on Care
Virginia Mason Health System and CHI Franciscan announced plans in July to merge 12 hospitals and more than 250 other treatment sites in the Puget Sound region and the Yakima area. Some patient advocacy groups warn the proposal would jeopardize access to needed services, such as emergency termination of pregnancies, contraception and physician aid in dying.
Avoiding Care During the Pandemic Could Mean Life or Death
Americans are avoiding hospitals and clinics by the millions, even when they shouldn’t, and many experts expect a jump in preventable disease diagnoses after the COVID crisis eases. Paradoxically, the pandemic may have been good for some heart patients, however.
Listen: A Bureaucratic Shuffle for Hospital COVID Data
KHN’s Julie Rovner discusses the Trump administration plans to change how hospitals report their data on coronavirus cases and concerns among critics that may allow officials to use the material to make political points.
Next Showdown in Congress: Protecting Workers vs. Protecting Employers in the Pandemic
Democrats want to bind employers to follow a safety plan, while Republicans seek to shield employers and doctors from lawsuits.
Families of Health Workers Killed by COVID Fight for Denied Workers’ Comp Benefits
Attorneys say some state workers’ compensation laws leave workers and families struggling for benefits after a COVID illness or death.
Amid Surge, Hospitals Hesitate To Cancel Nonemergency Surgeries
Unlike earlier in the year, most hospitals are not proactively canceling elective surgeries, even in some places seeing spikes in coronavirus patients.
Hospital Executive Charged In $1.4B Rural Hospital Billing Scheme
In an investigation last year, KHN detailed the rise and fall of Miami businessman Jorge A. Perez’s rural hospital empire, which spanned eight states and encompassed half of the rural hospital bankruptcies in 2019.
Workers Filed More Than 4,100 Complaints About Protective Gear. Some Still Died.
As health workers were dying of COVID-19, federal work-safety officials filed just one citation against an employer and rapidly closed complaints about protective gear.
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The Pandemic Shifts; The Politics, Not So Much
While federal and state officials continue to wrangle over coronavirus testing, the population testing positive is skewing younger. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wins a round in court over its requirements for hospitals to publicly reveal their prices, and the fight over the fate of the Affordable Care Act heats up once again. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Also, Rovner interviews former Obama administration health aide Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who has written a new book comparing international health systems.
US Nurses At For-Profit Hospital Chain To Strike Over Cuts And PPE Shortages
Health care workers report understaffing, long hours and protective equipment shortages at HCA Healthcare hospitals.
Pandemic Forced Insurers To Pay For In-Home Treatments. Will They Disappear?
With stay-at-home orders in place, hospitals experimented with delivering many treatments to patients where they lived. They were a success. As society reopens, the return of old payment practices may prevent the adoption of this new, efficient model of care.
Listen: Pandemic Shifts Health Care And It May Be Hard To Get Genie Back In Bottle
KHN’s Julie Rovner visits “Here & Now” to discuss the outlook for fundamental changes in the health care industry triggered by the coronavirus outbreak.
Citing COVID, Sutter Pushes To Revisit Landmark Antitrust Settlement
Six months after agreeing to a $575 million settlement in a landmark antitrust case, Sutter Health has yet to pay a single dollar and now says the terms may be untenable, given the strain caused by the pandemic.
Wealthy Hospital Taps Craft Breweries For Aid To Buy Masks, Gloves
Although the federal government has poured billions of dollars into hospitals to defray their losses from the coronavirus outbreak, new streams of fundraising have emerged — including health worker-themed beer that adds “a drop in the bucket.”
At-Home Care Designed For COVID Likely Here To Stay At Cleveland Hospital
A public hospital in Cleveland has been trying to keep COVID patients out of its beds. It tried a number of innovations for developing better communication — even better relationships — with patients. Officials think this groundwork helped keep the outbreak at bay — and should be the new business model going forward.
Rapid Changes To Health System Spurred By COVID Might Be Here To Stay
The coronavirus pandemic has forced the nation’s doctors and hospitals to reevaluate how they work. At least three major changes may have a lasting impact.
COVID-19 Overwhelms Border ICUs
Some California hospitals near the Mexican border have received so many COVID-19 patients the past few weeks that they have had to divert some to other facilities. Hospital officials say most of the infected patients are U.S. citizens or legal residents who live in, or recently traveled to, Mexico and came to the U.S. for care.
COVID-19 abruma a las terapias intensivas en la frontera
A pesar que la mayoría de los hospitales de California no tuvieron un aumento dramático de pacientes, algunas instalaciones cerca de la frontera con México se han visto desbordadas.
California AG Seeks More Power To Battle Merger-Hungry Health Care Chains
Xavier Becerra has made battling health care consolidation a priority since he became attorney general. Now that COVID-19 threatens vulnerable health care practices, he’s pushing to expand his authority to slow health care mergers.
