Unauthorized Sign-Ups Cast Shadow on Obamacare’s Record Enrollment
By Julie Appleby
April 4, 2024
KFF Health News Original
The Biden administration faces what looks like a growing problem for the federal Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchange: disreputable insurance brokers enrolling people who don’t need coverage or switching them to new plans without their authorization. It happened to Michael Debriae, a restaurant server who lives in Charlotte. Unbeknownst to him, an agent in Florida […]
Emergency Physicians Decry Surprise Air-Ambulance Bills
By Molly Castle Work
March 27, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Emergency room doctors say insurers are increasingly declining to cover costly air-ambulance rides for critically ill patients, claiming they aren’t medically necessary. And the National Association of EMS Physicians says the No Surprises Act, enacted in 2022, is partly to blame. The law protects patients from many out-of-network medical bills by requiring insurers and providers […]
Opposition to Medicaid Expansion Thaws in an Unexpected Place: The Deep South
By Daniel Chang Andy Miller
February 23, 2024
KFF Health News Original
For more than a decade, some Southern states have resisted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, even though data suggest it could help their residents. Today, the large majority of uninsured Americans who would gain coverage under Medicaid expansion — and who would benefit from affordable access to care — live in non-expansion states […]
GOP-Led States Expand Crackdowns on Transgender Care
By Lauren Sausser Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez
March 13, 2024
KFF Health News Original
South Carolina’s legislature is poised to pass a bill prohibiting doctors from offering some health-care services to transgender minors — part of a new wave of anti-trans legislation from Republican-led states. The South Carolina bill, which passed the state House of Representatives in January and is under consideration in the Senate, would bar health-care providers […]
Why Hospitals in Many States With Legal Abortion May Refuse To Perform Them
By Rachana Pradhan
March 5, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Many states that tout themselves as protectors of reproductive health care, including California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have little-noticed laws on the books protecting hospitals that refuse to provide it. The laws shield at least some hospitals from liability for not providing care they object to on religious grounds, leaving little recourse for patients. The providers — many of them […]
This State Isn’t Waiting for Biden To Negotiate Drug Prices
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
March 26, 2024
KFF Health News Original
As the federal government negotiates with drugmakers to lower the price of 10 expensive drugs for Medicare patients, impatient legislators in some states are trying to go even further. Leading the pack is Colorado, where a new Prescription Drug Affordability Review Board is set to recommend an “upper payment limit” for drugs it deems unaffordable. In late […]
A Battle Between Drugmakers and Insurers Hits Patients in the Wallet
By Julie Appleby
March 20, 2024
KFF Health News Original
There’s a long-running battle between insurers and drugmakers over financial assistance programs that purport to help patients afford expensive drugs. And lately, insurers have been losing ground as lawmakers, regulators and courts weigh in. The issue is whether coupons and other copay aid many patients get from drugmakers should count toward annual insurance deductibles and […]
Joe Biden’s Skittish Support for Abortion Rights
By Julie Rovner
March 15, 2024
KFF Health News Original
President Biden spent much of his State of the Union speech last week talking about two subjects central to his reelection campaign while seemingly trying not to name them. One was Donald Trump, or as Biden called him, “my predecessor.” The other was abortion. It’s hardly news that Biden, an 81-year-old devout Catholic, is uncomfortable […]
Newsom’s $6.4 Billion Homelessness Gambit Hangs by a Thread
By Angela Hart
March 8, 2024
KFF Health News Original
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ambitious attempt to combat the mental health and addiction epidemic in his state is leading by a razor-thin margin, calling into question whether voters trust him to confront the state’s growing homelessness crisis. Newsom asked voters on Tuesday to approve his $6.4 billion bond measure, dubbed “Treatment not Tents” — the […]
The Supreme Court Confronts a Public Health Challenge: Homeless Encampments
By Angela Hart
February 28, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Homelessness is a soaring public health crisis, with a record 653,000 unhoused people in the United States, according to federal estimates. Tent and recreational vehicle encampments have exploded in recent years, crowding streets and sidewalks from Portland, Ore., to New York. In California, where roughly a third of all the nation’s homeless people live, doctors […]
Under Fire for Massive Health System Hack, Biden Team Leans on Insurers
By Darius Tahir
March 19, 2024
KFF Health News Original
The Biden administration has hit on a strategy to deal with the massive, industry-paralyzing cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group unit: pressuring insurers to fix it. Federal officials have been in constant conversation with senior leaders at UnitedHealth and across the industry, including at a Monday meeting where Department of Health and Human Services and White […]
A Legal Battle Over Herring Fishing Has Big Implications for Health Care
By Julie Rovner
January 30, 2024
KFF Health News Original
What do herring fishing and health policy have in common? Quite a bit, it turns out, owing to a case now before the Supreme Court. If the justices rule as expected, based on this month’s oral arguments, they could dramatically change the way federal health agencies operate. “The upheaval caused … would be immense,” argues […]
The No Surprises Act Comes With Some Surprises
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
February 14, 2024
KFF Health News Original
The No Surprises Act, the landmark law intended to protect patients from surprise out-of-network medical bills, has come with, well, some surprises. A little more than two years after it took effect, there’s good and bad news about how it’s working. First, it’s important to note that the law has successfully protected millions of patients […]
Biden Cracks Down on Prior Authorization — But There Are Limits
By Lauren Sausser
January 18, 2024
KFF Health News Original
More than a year after it was initially proposed, the Biden administration announced a final rule yesterday that will change how insurers in federal programs such as Medicare Advantage use prior authorization — a long-standing system that prevents many patients from accessing doctor-recommended care. “When a doctor says a patient needs a procedure, it is […]
Senators Weigh Whether Health Care AI Needs a Leash
By Darius Tahir
February 9, 2024
KFF Health News Original
The Senate Finance Committee contemplated the future yesterday: artificial intelligence and its potential applications to health care. And it turns out the future looks an awful lot like the past and present: Democrats want regulations. And the industry wants money. “There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) […]
Even in Bright-Blue California, Abortion Is on the Ballot
By Molly Castle Work
February 7, 2024
KFF Health News Original
The race to replace the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is in full swing in California. Although the state enshrined abortion rights into its constitution, the prospect of a national abortion ban has the candidates vying for a Senate seat putting a spotlight on reproductive rights. Or, at least the Democrats are. Steve Garvey, a […]
Halfway Through ‘Unwinding,’ Medicaid Enrollment Is Down About 10 Million
By Phil Galewitz
February 6, 2024
KFF Health News Original
We’re halfway through the Medicaid “unwinding,” in which states are dropping people from the government health insurance program for the first time since the pandemic began. Millions of people have been dumped from the rolls since April, often for procedural issues like failing to respond to notices or return paperwork. But at the same time, […]
Will CMS Crack Down on Prior Authorization?
By Lauren Sausser
January 9, 2024
KFF Health News Original
There’s the Idaho doctor whose infant daughter developed a brain tumor. A woman in Southern California who waited months for an MRI before dying in the hospital. And a North Carolina patient who has trigeminal neuralgia — a condition so painful it’s commonly called the “suicide disease.” They all have something in common, aside from […]
Is the Nation’s Primary Care Shortage as Bad as Federal Data Suggest?
By Rae Ellen Bichell
February 1, 2024
KFF Health News Original
Federal policymakers have been trying for a long time to lure more primary care providers to understaffed areas. The Biden administration boosted funding in 2022 to address shortages and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pushed sweeping primary care legislation in 2023. But when KFF Health News set out last year to map where the primary care workforce shortages really are — and where […]
Utah Survey Shows Why So Many People Were Dumped From Medicaid
By Phil Galewitz
January 3, 2024
KFF Health News Original
It’s one of the biggest mysteries in health policy: What happened to millions of Americans kicked out of Medicaid last year? A survey conducted for state officials in Utah, obtained by KFF Health News, holds some clues. Like many states, Utah terminated Medicaid coverage for a large share of enrollees whose eligibility was reevaluated in […]
