California Hospitals, Advocates Seek Stable Funding to Retain Behavioral Health Navigators
By Vanessa G. Sánchez
March 1, 2024
KFF Health News Original
California has supported expanded use of medications in the fight against opioid use disorder and overdose deaths. But hospitals and addiction treatment advocates say the state needs to secure ongoing funding if it wants more behavioral health workers to guide patients into long-term treatment.
Hospitales de California y defensores buscan financiación estable para retener a navegadores de salud conductual
By Vanessa G. Sánchez
March 8, 2024
KFF Health News Original
En 2022, el año más reciente del que se dispone de datos, 7,385 californianos murieron por sobredosis relacionadas con opioides, de los cuales el 88% involucró fentanilo, un opioide sintético que puede ser 50 veces más potente que la heroína.
Unraveling the Interplay of Omicron, Reinfections, and Long Covid
By Liz Szabo
August 26, 2022
KFF Health News Original
The omicron variant has proved adept at finding hosts, often by reinfecting people who recovered from earlier bouts of covid. But whether omicron triggers long covid as often and severe as previous variants is a matter of heated study.
The End of the Covid Emergency Could Mean a Huge Loss of Health Insurance
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
April 6, 2022
KFF Health News Original
It is a perilous time to throw low- and middle-income Americans off the insurance cliff: A new omicron subvariant is spreading, and a program that provided coronavirus testing and covid-19 treatment at no cost to the uninsured has expired.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Au Revoir, Public Health Emergency
February 2, 2023
Podcast
The Biden administration this week announced it would let the covid-19 public health emergency lapse on May 11, even as the Republican-led House was voting to immediately eliminate the special authorities of the so-called PHE. Meanwhile, anti-abortion forces are pressuring legislators to both tighten abortion restrictions and pay for every birth in the nation. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Victoria Knight of Axios join KHN’s chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Hannah Wesolowski of the National Alliance on Mental Illness about the rollout of the national 988 suicide prevention hotline.
White House Left States On Their Own To Buy Ventilators. Inside Their Mad Scramble.
By Rachana Pradhan
June 15, 2020
KFF Health News Original
Although laws prohibit price gouging on precious resources in times of emergency, states have been forced to compete for a share of the nation’s stockpile of ventilators — used to treat the sickest COVID patients — or pay top dollar on sideline deals. With quality and quantity control lacking, what happens when the pandemic’s second wave hits?
Don’t Count on Lower Premiums Despite Pandemic-Driven Boon for Insurers
By Bernard J. Wolfson
July 31, 2020
KFF Health News Original
Early in the pandemic, insurers expected the costs of treating COVID-19 would vastly increase medical spending. Instead, non-COVID care has plummeted and insurers have pocketed the result. Still, few industry observers are predicting broad-based premium cuts in 2021, though some health plans have proposed lowering their rates.
Facebook Live: Intimate Lessons From The Front Lines Of Family Caregiving
November 20, 2019
KFF Health News Original
Family caregivers are the backbone of our nation’s system of long-term care for older adults. Every year, more than 34 million unpaid caregivers — mostly family members — provide essential aid to adults age 50 and older, helping with tasks such as bathing or dressing and, increasingly, performing complex medical tasks such as managing medications, dressing wounds and operating medical equipment.
Readers React: UVA Doctors Outraged Over Their Own Health System’s Billing Practices
November 23, 2019
KFF Health News Original
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Facebook Live: Confronting Opioid Addiction
April 26, 2018
KFF Health News Original
About 2,000 Californians died of opioid overdoses in 2016, but access to medications that treat addiction is limited in some parts of the state.
Lax Oversight Leaves Surgery Center Regulators And Patients In The Dark
By Christina Jewett Mark Alesia, USA Today Network
August 9, 2018
KFF Health News Original
A Kaiser Health News and USA Today Network investigation finds that a hodgepodge of state rules governing outpatient centers allow some deaths and serious injuries to go unexamined. And no rule stops a doctor exiled by a hospital for misconduct from opening a surgery center down the street.
As Surgery Centers Boom, Patients Are Paying With Their Lives
By Christina Jewett Mark Alesia, USA Today Network
March 2, 2018
KFF Health News Original
An investigation by Kaiser Health News and the USA TODAY Network discovers that more than 260 patients have died since 2013 after in-and-out procedures at surgery centers across the country. More than a dozen — some as young as 2 — have perished after routine operations, such as colonoscopies and tonsillectomies.
Liquid Gold: Pain Doctors Soak Up Profits By Screening Urine For Drugs
By Fred Schulte Elizabeth Lucas
Photos by Heidi de Marco
November 6, 2017
KFF Health News Original
With the nation’s opioid crisis, urine testing has become a booming business and is especially lucrative for doctors who operate their own labs, a Kaiser Health News investigation finds. And dozens of practitioners have earned “the lion’s share” of their Medicare income exclusively from urine drug screens.
A medida que crecen los centros de cirugía, los pacientes están pagando con sus vidas
By Christina Jewett Mark Alesia, USA Today Network
March 2, 2018
KFF Health News Original
Hay más de 5,600 centros de cirugía en todo el país, en donde se realizan procedimientos quirúrgicos menores. Pero una investigación reveló que a veces ocurren complicaciones que hubieran sido prevenibles en un hospital.
Candidates Decry High Drug Prices, But They Have Few Options For Voters
By Julie Rovner
September 16, 2016
KFF Health News Original
Drug prices rise for a variety of reasons but opportunities for the government to control them is limited.
Bipartisan Center Offers Plan To Reduce Health Spending
By Mary Agnes Carey
April 19, 2013
KFF Health News Original
Medicare beneficiaries would have access to better coordinated medical care and the current Medicare physician payment formula would be scrapped as part of a health care cost containment plan the Bipartisan Policy Center unveiled Thursday. The plan offers more than 50 recommendations that would cut the federal deficit by about $560 billion over the next […]
Monthly Premiums For A ‘Benchmark’ Silver Plan In Federally Run Insurance Marketplaces
September 29, 2013
KFF Health News Original
This chart lists sample premiums in the 36 states where the federal government is running the online insurance marketplaces.
Table: Caring for Migrant Farmworkers
June 6, 2012
KFF Health News Original
Details about the 156 health centers that get federal funds to provide primary care to migrant and seasonal farmworkers regardless of immigration status.
Documents: Medicare, Medicaid In The GOP’s ‘Path to Prosperity’ Budget
By KFF Health News Staff
April 5, 2011
KFF Health News Original
The GOP “Path to Prosperity” 2012 budget blueprint includes proposals to restrain spending growth in health care costs by voucherizing Medicare and giving Medicaid block grants to states.
