Morning Breakouts

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Dirt-Cheap ‘Junk Insurance’ Plans, Wiped Out By ACA, Could Reappear Under GOP Health Bill

Morning Briefing

The Congressional Budget Office says the plans are so low-quality that it considers people who have them to be uninsured. In other news on the Republican health care plan, former patients speak out against the high-risk pools central to the legislation, Democrats criticize the Medicaid cuts they say will hurt rural Americans and a look at preexisting condition coverage.

CMS Chief Lumps Marketplace Woes Onto Obamacare’s Shoulders

Morning Briefing

Seema Verma, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, says that the buck stops with the creators of the Affordable Care Act over high premiums and an unstable marketplace. In other news, House Republicans defend their decision to seek delays in the insurer cost-sharing reduction lawsuit, and Connecticut might be left without any insurers offering plans under Obamacare.

Profit Mining The Opioid Epidemic: These Middlemen Are Turning ‘Patients Into Paychecks’

Morning Briefing

Patient brokers can earn up to tens of thousands of dollars a year by wooing vulnerable addicts for treatment centers that often provide few services and sometimes are run by disreputable operators with no training or expertise. Meanwhile, there are tools people can turn to in order to manage chronic pain, but the treatments costs thousands of dollars.

Cuts To Biosecurity In Trump Budget Leaves ‘The American People Very Vulnerable,’ Experts Say

Morning Briefing

The Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, which tracks outbreaks of disease, would be cut by $136 million, or 9.7 percent, while the branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that fights threats like anthrax and Ebola would be cut by $65 million, or 11 percent. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump tweeted that he wanted to allocate more money toward health care, which is in direct contrast to both his proposed budget and the House GOP health bill.