Latest KFF Health News Stories
Adult Children Discuss the Trials of Caring for Their Aging Parents
The financial and emotional toll of providing and paying for long-term care is wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of Americans. Read about how a few families are navigating the challenges, in their own words.
Who Polices Hospitals Merging Across Markets? States Give Different Answers
Increasingly, hospitals are merging across separate markets within states. It’s a move that health economists and the Federal Trade Commission have been closely watching, as evidence shows such mergers raise prices for patients with no improvement in care.
Funyuns and Flu Shots? Gas Station Company Ventures Into Urgent Care
A Tulsa-based gas station chain is using its knowledge of how to serve customers and locate shops in easy-to-find spots to enter the urgent care industry, which has doubled in size over the past decade. Experts question how the explosion of convenient clinics will affect care costs and wait times.
Voters Rejected an Anti-Abortion Measure. State GOP Lawmakers Passed a Similar Bill Anyway.
The new Montana law contains a couple of significant differences from the measure voters rebuffed last fall.
Colorado Becomes the First State to Ban So-Called Abortion Pill Reversals
The controversial practice of administering progesterone to people after they have taken the abortion pill mifepristone may be coming to an end in Colorado. Pills have emerged as the latest front in the war over abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.
People With Down Syndrome Are Living Longer, but the Health System Still Treats Many as Kids
The median life expectancy for a U.S. baby born with Down syndrome jumped from about four years in 1950 to 58 years in the 2010s. That’s largely because they no longer can be denied lifesaving care, including surgeries for heart defects. But now, aging adults with Down syndrome face a health system unprepared to care for them.
Legal Questions, Inquiries Intensify Around Noble Health’s Rural Missouri Hospital Closures
A year after private equity-backed Noble Health shuttered two rural Missouri hospitals, a slew of lawsuits and state and federal investigations grind forward. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey recently confirmed an “ongoing” investigation as former employees continue to go unpaid and cope with unpaid medical claims.
A Lot of Thought, Little Action: Proposals About Mental Health Go Unheeded
A recent report detailing problems with Florida’s patchwork mental health system had reached conclusions nearly identical to those of a similar report from more than 20 years ago. The echoes between the findings are unmistakable. And Florida isn’t the only state struggling with the criminalization of mental illness, a lack of coordination between providers, and insufficient access to treatment.
Judge Signals He Could Rule to Halt Sales of Common Abortion Pill
A U.S. District Court case is being widely followed because the judge’s decision could overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone two decades ago. With abortion rights polling well even in red states, anti-abortion activists are increasingly turning to the courts to achieve their aims.
California Attorney General Sues Drugmakers Over Inflated Insulin Prices
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is taking three major drugmakers and three distributors to court, alleging the companies illegally raised prices at the expense of diabetes patients.
Behavioral Telehealth Loses Momentum Without a Regulatory Boost
As flexible treatment options spurred by the covid pandemic wane, patients relying on medications classified as controlled substances worry that without action to extend the loosened rules, it’ll be harder to get their meds.
Cómo el optimismo puede cerrar la brecha de cobertura de Medicaid
Más de 2 millones de personas de bajos ingresos, la mitad de ellos en Florida y Texas, no tienen seguro porque están atrapados en una brecha de cobertura. Y sus estados no han expandido Medicaid.
How Optimism Can Close the Medicaid Coverage Gap
Low-income residents in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid are in a tough spot: They don’t qualify for the subsidies that people with slightly higher incomes get to buy marketplace plans because of a glitch in the federal health law. But a court decision last year makes it easier for them to make good-faith estimates of a pay increase, and there is no financial penalty if they don’t hit that figure.
Hospital Investigated for Allegedly Denying an Emergency Abortion After Patient’s Water Broke
Federal officials have ordered the probe after reports that a woman whose water broke at 18 weeks could not get medical care recommended by her doctors to end the pregnancy because hospital officials were concerned about Missouri’s strict abortion law.
Baby, That Bill Is High: Private Equity ‘Gambit’ Squeezes Excessive ER Charges From Routine Births
Hospitals, boosted by private equity-backed staffing companies, have embraced a new idea: the obstetrics emergency department. Often, it is just a triage room in the labor-and-delivery area, but it bills like the main emergency department.
At This Recovery Center, Police Cope With the Mental Health Costs of the Job
Burnout, PTSD, depression, and substance misuse are rampant among first responders, partly fueled by the anti-police sentiments after the killing of George Floyd. Combined with low morale, the poor state of officers’ mental health has pushed many out of the profession, leaving those who remain exhausted. A handful of specialized treatment facilities are trying to meet demand, but more resiliency training is needed, experts said.
Centene to Pay $166 Million to Texas in Medicaid Drug Pricing Settlement
Texas is at least the 12th state to settle with St. Louis-based Centene Corp. over allegations that it overcharged Medicaid prescription drug programs.
Buy and Bust: Collapse of Private Equity-Backed Rural Hospitals Mired Employees in Medical Bills
The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Kansas Makes a Statement
In the first official test vote since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in Kansas’ primary said in no uncertain terms they want to keep a right to abortion in their state constitution. Meanwhile, the Senate is still working to reach a vote before summer recess on its health care-climate-tax measure, but progress is slow. Tami Luhby of CNN, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN’s Bram Sable-Smith, who wrote the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment about a very expensive ambulance trip.
Conservative Blocs Unleash Litigation to Curb Public Health Powers
Spurred on by opposition to pandemic-related health mandates, a coalition of religious liberty groups, conservative think tanks, and Republican state attorneys general has filed a cascade of litigation seeking to rein in the powers of public health authorities.
