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There has been a steep rise in the share of people with severe mental illnesses being sent to state psychiatric hospitals on court orders after being accused of serious crimes. The shift has all but halted patients’ ability to get care before they have a catastrophic crisis.
Federal officials reversed their stance on medical debt credit reporting, then came a lawsuit in Colorado. As lawmakers in other states forge ahead with attempts to protect consumers from medical debt, some are reconsidering how they go about it.
Republican calls to give Americans cash instead of health insurance subsidies double down on a decades-old strategy of moving people into high-deductible plans with health savings accounts.
After her son contracted a serious bacterial infection, an Ohio mother took the toddler to a nearby ER, and staffers there sent him to a children’s hospital in an ambulance. With no insurance, the family was hit with a $9,250 bill for the 40-minute ride.
Amid public forums and local cries for help, states are also talking with large health systems, technology companies, and others amid intensifying competition for shares of a $50 billion fund to improve rural health.
Federal health authorities have taken the "unprecedented" step of instructing states to investigate certain individuals on Medicaid to determine whether they are ineligible because of their immigration status, with five states reporting they’ve received more than 170,000 names collectively.
A federal probe of Medicare and Medicaid plans run by private insurance companies found that the plan operators often overstated how many mental health providers were available in their networks. In some cases, investigators found providers had never had contracts with plans they were listed on.
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.
Under a new law, many Americans will have to meet a work requirement to obtain and keep their Medicaid coverage. But due to an exemption, millions living in areas of high unemployment could be spared.
A pilot program testing the use of artificial intelligence to expand prior authorization decisions in Medicare has providers, politicians, and researchers questioning Trump administration promises to curb an unpopular practice that has frustrated patients and their doctors.
Some states are enacting medical debt laws as the Trump administration pulls back federal protections. Elsewhere, industry opposition has derailed legislation.
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.
Independent and rural hospitals are collaborating with their neighbors to shore up their finances instead of joining larger health systems to stay afloat.
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.
Alarmed at Republicans’ deep cuts to health care and restrictions on reproductive rights, advocates are supporting California’s effort to counter a mid-decade gerrymander by the Texas GOP to pad their party’s fragile U.S. House majority.
More than a dozen states are seeking their own versions of Medicaid work requirements. But the incoming federal standards pose questions around how much leeway states have to design their rules.
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.
A Colorado bill banning surprise billing for ambulance rides passed unanimously in both legislative chambers, only to be met with a veto from the governor. As more states pass such legislation, some are hitting the same snag — concerns about raising premiums.
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.
Republicans claim 4.8 million Americans on Medicaid who could work choose not to. The GOP’s work-requirement legislation could sweep up disabled people who say they’re unable to hold jobs.
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