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About 1 in 4 American adults got a covid vaccine shot during the 2024-25 virus season, a fraction health care experts warn could be smaller this year as millions wrestle with conflicting advice from the government and trusted medical organizations about the value of a shot.
Local governments have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the opioid settlements to support addiction treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts. Their spending decisions in 2024 were sometimes surprising and even controversial. Our new database offers more than 10,500 examples.
The federal government is making sweeping changes to SNAP, the program that helped feed about 42 million people in the U.S. last year. Here’s a breakdown of the changes to come and potential impacts.
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.
As families fracture, people are living longer and are more likely to find themselves without close relatives or friends at the end of their lives.
Community health centers are key to delivering care in underserved communities around the country, but their services could be disrupted or scaled back after governments did not renew their funding.
Some injured patients say they wish they had tried harder to check the backgrounds of doctors and clinics they trusted, but those records are hard to find.
Even if people qualify for financial help with their hospital bills, the care they receive may not be covered.
The decisions by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices matter, because insurers and federal programs rely on them, but they are not binding. States can follow the recommendations, or not.
A lack of faith in the soundness of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new direction has led states to explore enacting their own vaccine policies. A patchwork of divergent recommendations and requirements could result.
Public health officials see lice as a nuisance, not a health threat, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended for years that students with live lice be allowed to remain in class. But as “no-nit” policies have been dropped in favor of “nonexclusion” rules, some school districts have seen parents and teachers push back.
In a survey by the National Funeral Directors Association, more than 60% of respondents said they would be interested in exploring green and natural burial alternatives.
The Trump administration's cuts of public health funds to state and local health departments had vastly uneven effects depending on the political leanings of where someone lives, a new KFF Health News analysis shows.
Health insurance generally doesn’t cover treatment for injuries sustained shortly before a customer buys a policy. A Massachusetts woman found that out the hard way.
The GOP’s tax and spending law and a new rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will make it harder to enroll in Affordable Care Act health plans, will raise consumers’ out-of-pocket costs, and could prompt younger, healthier people, including lawfully present immigrants who will lose financial aid, to drop coverage.
A doctor doing environmental health research in rural Maine is working to establish the best practices to treat patients exposed to “forever chemicals,” potentially leading the way for practitioners across the nation.
The No Surprises Act, which was signed in 2020 and took effect in 2022, was heralded as a landmark piece of legislation that would protect people who had health insurance from receiving surprise medical bills. And yet bills that take patients by surprise keep coming.
In 2017, when President Donald Trump tried to repeal Obamacare and roll back Medicaid coverage, Republican governors helped turn Congress against it. Now, as Trump tries again to scale back Medicaid, Republican governors — whose constituents stand to lose federal funding and health coverage — have gone quiet on the health consequences.
Spending cuts hitting medical providers, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act enrollees, and lawfully present immigrants are just some of the biggest changes the GOP has in store for health care — with ramifications that could touch all Americans.
Following a petition from Democratic state attorneys general, the American Medical Association adopted a position that medical certification exams should not be required in person in states with restrictive abortion policies. The action’s success was hailed as a win for Democrats trying to regain ground after the fall of Roe.
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