Weekly Edition May 3, 2019

Summer Bummer: A Young Camper’s $142,938 Snakebite
By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez
The snake struck a 9-year-old hiker at dusk on a nature trail. The outrageous bills struck her parents a few weeks later.

FDA To End Program That Hid Millions Of Reports On Faulty Medical Devices
By Christina Jewett
In the wake of a KHN investigation, the agency will no longer let device makers file reports of harm outside a widely used public database.

Even Doctors Can’t Navigate Our ‘Broken Health Care System’
By Judith Graham
A physician’s frustration navigating a medical emergency with his elderly father reveals a complex, dysfunctional system.

Will Ties To A Catholic Hospital System Tie Doctors’ Hands?
By Jenny Gold
Doctors at the University of California’s flagship San Francisco hospital are sharply divided over a proposal to join forces with a Catholic-run system that restricts care on the basis of religious doctrine — part of a broader public debate as Catholic hospitals expand their reach.

Watch: Electronic Medical Records Investigation In Spotlight On C-SPAN
KHN’s Fred Schulte talks on C-SPAN with viewers about errors and other problems with computerized health records.

Short-Staffed Nursing Homes See Drop In Medicare Ratings
By Jordan Rau and Elizabeth Lucas
In its latest update to the Nursing Home Compare website, the government gave 1,638 homes its lowest star rating for staffing — one star on its five-star scale. Most were downgraded because payroll records reported no registered-nurse hours at all for at least four days.

Look-Up: How Nursing Home Staffing Fluctuates Nationwide
Use this tool to see staffing levels at skilled nursing homes in the U.S.

CBO’s Report On Single-Payer Health Care Holds More Questions Than Answers
By Shefali Luthra
The Congressional Budget Office report does clearly communicate that shifting to this type of health system would be a complicated process.

A Big Hearing For ‘Medicare-For-All’ — In A Small Room
By Julie Rovner
In an unusual move, the House Rules Committee, instead of one of the panels that typically oversee health policy, held the first House hearing in a decade about converting the U.S. to a government-financed health care system.

Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Bye-Bye, ACA, And Hello ‘Medicare-For-All’?
Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post and Erin Mershon of Stat News join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss the latest in news about the Trump administration’s effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a historic hearing on “Medicare-for-all” and the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling that the state constitution protects a woman’s right to abortion. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Carmen Heredia Rodriguez about the latest “Bill of the Month” feature.

Diabetic Amputations A ‘Shameful Metric’ Of Inadequate Care
By Anna Gorman and Heidi de Marco
In California, people who are black or Latino are more than twice as likely as whites to undergo amputations related to diabetes, a Kaiser Health News analysis found. The pattern is not unique to California.

Is Insulin’s High Cost Keeping Diabetes Patients From Taking Their Medicine?
By Shefali Luthra
An estimated 1.25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes and cannot live without insulin. Sen. Kamala Harris’ claim that 1 in 4 diabetes patients cannot afford their insulin is a shockingly high number, so we decided to dig into the sparse data.

For Those With Developmental Disabilities, Dental Needs Are Great, Good Care Elusive
By David Tuller
Lack of access means that people with physical and cognitive disabilities have a heavier burden of dental disease.

With Head Injuries Mounting, Will Cities Put Their Feet Down On E-Scooters?
By Sharon Jayson
As dockless electric scooters run roughshod through cities nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues its first assessment on injuries and safety. It studied the injuries linked to riding e-scooters in Austin, Texas, from September through November. More than 200 people were hurt in scooter crashes and mishaps — with nearly half suffering head injuries.

Booker’s Argument For Environmental Justice Stays Within The Lines
By Shefali Luthra
He didn’t overstate the relationship between hazardous waste sites and birth defects and autism.