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Edy Adams had just graduated from college when she was sexually assaulted in 2013. After getting examined at an ER, she received calls from debt collectors for years over a $131 bill. “I was being haunted by this zombie bill.”
The president laid out a series of goals, including lowering prescription prices, pursuing an end to the HIV epidemic and boosting funding for childhood cancers.
The U.S. health system now produces debt on a mass scale, a new investigation shows. Patients face gut-wrenching sacrifices.
UnitedHealth Group is the largest health insurer in the United States. And it keeps growing. This has led some health care experts to call for antitrust regulation of this “behemoth” company.
Shereese Hickson’s doctor wanted her to try the infusion drug Ocrevus for her multiple sclerosis. Even though Hickson is trained as a medical billing coder, she was shocked to see two doses of the drug priced at $123,019, with her share set at $3,620.
Some hospitals notch big profits while patients are pushed into debt by skyrocketing medical prices and high deductibles, a KHN analysis finds.
The commonly repeated myths include arguments that only women who are pregnant are affected by the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that Democratic lawmakers could have codified abortion protections before, and that Congress can easily get rid of federal laws restricting abortion.
In California, where inmates manufacture glasses for Medi-Cal, enrollees and providers can wait months for their orders. Now, state lawmakers are considering allowing clinics to order from private labs as well.
California voters will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to explicitly protect abortion rights. But there is disagreement over whether the proposal, Proposition 1, would merely enshrine existing rights or expand them.
Private Medicare Advantage health plans are increasingly ending coverage for skilled nursing or rehab services before medical providers think patients are healthy enough to go home, doctors and patient advocates say.
In Part II of this special two-part episode, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Varney of KHN join KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss how the abortion debate has evolved since the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, and what might be the flashpoints for 2023. Also, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their most memorable reproductive health stories from the last year.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health articles from the week so you don’t have to.
Joe Pitzo was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. After surgery, the bills topped $350,000. “This just took a major toll on my credit,” Joe said. “It went down to next to nothing.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener opens up about a weeklong stint in the hospital last year and what it’s like to live with Crohn’s disease. The San Francisco Democrat is pushing a bill that would require insurance companies to cover certain medications while patients appeal denials.
School lockdown drills are designed to prepare students for violent threats. But for some students, especially those with special needs, the drills can trigger or exacerbate mental health problems. Texas is taking a step toward balancing safety and mental health with new regulations around how the drills are conducted. “If some kids are coming away traumatized or we’re magnifying existing trauma, we’re not moving in the right direction,” one expert says.
The public health emergency declaration for covid-19 ends May 11, ushering in major changes in how Americans can access and pay for the vaccines, treatments, and tests particular to the culprit coronavirus. But not everyone will experience the same changes, creating a confusing patchwork of coverage — not unlike health coverage for other diseases. Meanwhile, outside advisers to the FDA formally recommended allowing a birth control pill to be sold without a prescription. If the FDA follows the recommendation, it would represent the first over-the-counter form of hormonal contraception. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Tami Luhby of CNN, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
MLK Community Hospital in South Los Angeles is surrounded by poverty, homeless encampments, and food deserts. Even though California Gov. Gavin Newsom is funneling billions of taxpayer money into an ambitious initiative to provide some low-income patients with social services, hospital executives and other critics say it won’t improve access to basic care.
Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform.
South Dakotans voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program to cover thousands of additional low-income residents. But as other conservative states have shown, voter approval doesn’t always mean politicians and administrators will rush to implement the change.
Conservative states are moving to severely restrict abortions, and many are pressing for bans that provide no exception for cases of rape or incest or even to save the life of the mother. But public opinion polls suggest those limits could cause blowback.
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