Latest KFF Health News Stories
Toxic Gas That Sterilizes Medical Devices Prompts Safety Rule Update
The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening regulation of ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic gas used to sterilize medical devices. The agency is trying to balance the interests of the health care industry supply chain with those of communities where the gas creates airborne health risks.
A Government Video Would Explain When Abortion Is Legal in South Dakota
South Dakota allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy only if a patient’s life is in jeopardy. Lawmakers say a government-created video would clarify what that exception actually means.
Pregnancy Care Was Always Lacking in Jails. It Could Get Worse.
A lack of oversight and standards for pregnancy care in jails is becoming more problematic as the number of incarcerated women rises and abortion restrictions put medical care further out of reach.
Southern Lawmakers Rethink Long-Standing Opposition to Medicaid Expansion
While many Republican state lawmakers remain firmly against Medicaid expansion, some key leaders in holdout states are showing a willingness to reconsider. Public opinion, financial incentives, and widening health care needs make resistance harder.
States Target Health Insurers’ ‘Prior Authorization’ Red Tape
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
More ‘Navigators’ Are Helping Women Travel to Have Abortions
After the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion and many states banned the procedure, reproductive health care organizations hired dozens of people to help patients arrange travel and pay for care.
Ouch. That ‘Free’ Annual Checkup Might Cost You. Here’s Why.
The designers of the Affordable Care Act might have assumed that they spelled out with sufficient clarity that millions of Americans would no longer have to pay for certain types of preventive care. But they didn’t reckon with America’s ever-creative medical billing juggernaut.
Insurance Doesn’t Always Cover Hearing Aids for Kids
California’s governor vetoed a bill extending insurance coverage for kids with hearing loss, but most states now require it.
Trump Official Who OK’d Drugs From Canada Chairs Company Behind Florida’s Import Plan
Alex Azar advanced Canadian drug importation as Donald Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services. Now he chairs the board of a company managing Florida’s importation program.
Es común que altos funcionarios de ambos partidos dejen el servicio público por trabajos o puestos en juntas directivas, a menudo mejor remunerados, en empresas de las industrias que antes regulaban
Rising Malpractice Premiums Price Small Clinics Out of Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
Even in states where laws protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care, malpractice insurance premiums are keeping small and independent clinics from treating patients.
These Patients Had to Lobby for Correct Diabetes Diagnoses. Was Their Race a Reason?
Adults who develop one autoimmune form of diabetes are often misdiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Those wrong diagnoses make it harder to get the appropriate medications and technology to manage their blood sugar. Many Black patients wonder if their race plays a role.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': New Year, Same Abortion Debate
Some Supreme Court justices were wrong if they assumed overturning “Roe v. Wade” would settle the abortion issue before the high court. At least two cases are awaiting consideration, and more are in the legal pipeline. Meanwhile, Congress once again has only days until the next temporary spending bill runs out, with no budget deal in sight. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, about how public health can regain public trust.
California protegerá a trabajadores del calor extremo en interiores
Sólo otros dos estados, Minnesota y Oregon, han adoptado normas sobre el calor para las personas que trabajan en interiores, según la Administración de Seguridad y Salud Ocupacional (OSHA).
California Is Poised to Protect Workers From Extreme Heat — Indoors
Only a few states have rules to protect workers from the growing threat of extreme heat, either indoors or outdoors. California is expected to adopt heat standards for indoor workers in spring, even as federal legislation has stalled.
Cancer Patients Face Frightening Delays in Treatment Approvals
Delaying cancer treatment can be deadly — which makes the roadblock-riddled process that health insurers use to approve or deny care particularly daunting for oncology patients.
Inside the Pentagon’s Painfully Slow Effort to Clean Up Decades of PFAS Contamination
Cost estimates balloon and complications mount as the Defense Department grapples with PFAS pollution at hundreds of its bases and surrounding communities.
Patients Facing Death Are Opting for a Lifesaving Heart Device — But at What Risk?
The HeartMate 3 is considered the safest mechanical heart pump of its kind, but a federal database contains more than 4,500 reports in which the medical device may have caused or contributed to a patient’s death.
‘They See a Cash Cow’: Corporations Could Consume $50 Billion of Opioid Settlements
As opioid settlement dollars land in government coffers, a swarm of businesses are positioning themselves to profit from the windfall. But will their potential gains come at the expense of the settlements’ intended purpose — to remediate the effects of the opioid epidemic?
‘Financial Ruin Is Baked Into the System’: Readers on the Costs of Long-Term Care
Thousands of people shared their experiences and related to the financial drain on families portrayed in the “Dying Broke” series, a joint project by KFF Health News and The New York Times that examined the costs of long-term care.
