What the Air You Breathe May Be Doing to Your Brain
Studies increasingly find links between higher concentrations of certain pollutants and the prevalence of dementia.
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Studies increasingly find links between higher concentrations of certain pollutants and the prevalence of dementia.
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.
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.
More men are now living long enough to develop osteoporosis. But few are aware of the risk, and fewer still are screened and treated.
As a warming climate intensifies storms, KFF Health News has identified more than 170 U.S. hospitals at risk of significant and potentially dangerous flooding. Climate experts warn that the Trump administration’s cuts leave the nation less prepared.
North Carolina and Idaho are cutting their Medicaid programs to bridge budget gaps, raising fears that providers will stop taking patients and that hospitals will close even before the brunt of a new federal tax-and-budget law takes effect.
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.
Conventional wisdom says GLP-1 drugs must be taken indefinitely to maintain weight loss. But a growing number of researchers, payers, and providers are challenging that consensus and exploring whether — and how — to taper patients off expensive GLP-1 drugs.
For-profit hospitals provide most inpatient physical therapy but tend to have worse readmission rates to general hospitals. Medicare doesn’t tell consumers about troubling inspections.
Billions in opioid settlement money was meant to be spent on treating and preventing addiction — but what happens if it’s misspent? Some advocates say attorneys general need to pay closer attention. If they don’t, a new tool might empower the public.
Children and young adults in the U.S. foster care system suffer from mental health disorders and die by suicide at far higher rates than the general population, yet the system doesn’t uniformly screen and treat children who are at risk.
Efforts to decrease alarmingly high rates of suicide among construction workers and prevent burnout in health care workers are in jeopardy after the firing of hundreds of employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
States that run their own health insurance marketplaces fear an end to automatic Obamacare reenrollment under the tax and spending megabill would have an outsize effect on their policyholders.
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.
Fewer Americans will likely have health insurance, compromising their physical and financial health, as the Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress weigh major changes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. “The effects could be catastrophic,” one policy analyst predicts.
The number of nurse practitioners specializing in geriatrics has more than tripled since 2010.
Memory cafes are small social gatherings for individuals with memory loss and their caregivers. The events are cheap to run and can offer measurable benefits. Memory loss experts say they may become an even more important tool in the face of federal cuts to health programs.
The Trump administration wants to shutter the CDC’s National Asthma Control Program, which provides millions in funding to state-administered initiatives aimed at fighting the disease. The program’s closure, combined with massive cuts to environmental programs, could put the 28 million Americans with asthma at increased risk.
In recent weeks, Social Security has been plagued by problems related to technology, system errors, and even the marking of living people as dead.
A KFF Health News analysis underscores how the terminations have spared no part of the country, politically or geographically. Of the organizations that had grants cut in the first month, about 40% are in states President Donald Trump won in November.
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