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The HHS office that administers the Title X family planning program has been effectively shut down. And with cuts to federal funding for other family health programs, expected Medicaid cuts, and the potential lapse of ACA subsidies, health leaders fear they are seeing the biggest setback to U.S. reproductive care in half a century.
California now has a law requiring hospitals and clinics to improve patient privacy and have clear protocols for handling requests by immigration agents. Legal experts say the state can’t fully protect immigrant patients, because federal authorities are allowed in public places, including hospital lobbies, general waiting areas, and parking lots.
Under the budget law that Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, food assistance for refugees will be sliced. The change is sowing fear, uncertainty, and a struggle for survival — a sign of what’s to come for millions of Americans.
A doctor in Colorado became the patient after an accident totaled her car and sent her to the operating room. The hospital kept her overnight, but her insurer stopped paying after she left the emergency room.
Patients sometimes find themselves scrambling for affordable care when a contract dispute causes a hospital — and most of the doctors and other clinicians who work there — to be dropped from an insurance network. Here are six things to know if that happens to you.
Reversing guidance from the Biden administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concludes that states cannot bar medical debt from their residents’ credit reports.
A medical student’s DIY project brings “An Arm and a Leg” listeners together with new tools to fight medical debt.
Even if Congress strikes a deal soon to extend more generous Affordable Care Act subsidies, the prices and types of ACA plans available could change dramatically. Unprecedented uncertainty and upheaval could cloud this year’s open enrollment season, which begins in most states on Saturday.
Health care professionals fear that new caps on federal student lending, set to start in July, will put medical school out of reach for many who want to become doctors and exacerbate physician shortages. Others say unlimited federal lending has fed a rise in academic costs, saddling families and, ultimately, taxpayers with debt.
Florida has announced plans to end mandatory vaccination. Now scientists are assessing which of several diseases deadly to children — whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus — are likely to make a resurgence and when.
Some advocates and lawmakers want to impose national regulations on the gambling industry but would settle for reining in excessive betting at the state level.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national or local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
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Enhanced Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies have emerged as a flash point in the congressional standoff over the federal government shutdown. Republicans point to what they characterize as increasing amounts of fraud as a reason to hold up the subsidies. But there are two sides to the story.
KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner appeared on WAMU’s “Health Hub” to discuss how the government shutdown is affecting food benefits and the help many Americans get to offset their health insurance premiums.
Two major nutrition programs — SNAP and WIC — are likely to exhaust their funding in November, and the furloughs and firings at the CDC have left the agency unable to perform some of its major functions. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s new IVF policy is being met with dissatisfaction from both sides. Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Katheryn Houghton, who wrote the latest “Bill of the Month” feature.
The Trump administration says it’s developing a digital tool to help people prove they’re meeting new Medicaid work requirements. KFF Health News talked to officials from the two states running pilot programs and found little evidence of new — or effective — technology.
More older adults have turned to cochlear implants after Medicare expanded eligibility for the devices.
KFF data shows that 2025 marked the first time in two decades that the annual cost of covering a family of four rose by 6% or more for three consecutive years.
Recommendations surrounding covid vaccinations and other such shots have been confusing. Ultimately, though, little has changed. Here’s what you need to know.
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