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More than half of seniors are enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans instead of traditional Medicare. Rural enrollment has increased fourfold and many small-town hospitals say that threatens their viability.
This month, the federal government started paying for treatments delivered outside hospitals and clinics, expanding funding for “street medicine” teams that treat homeless patients. California led the way on the change, which could help sick and vulnerable patients get healthy, sober, and, in some cases, into housing.
When patients with sickle cell disease have a health crisis — crescent-shaped red blood cells blocking blood flow — their condition can quickly lead to a fatal stroke or infection. But, despite efforts to educate doctors, research shows that patients are waiting hours in ERs and are often denied pain medication.
In a torrent of lawsuits, patients accuse Florida device maker Exactech of hiding knee and hip implant defects for years. The company denies the allegations.
After three decades of declines in teen pregnancies, data shows the rates are starting to plateau. The reversal of "Roe v. Wade," coupled with efforts to suspend sex education in schools and higher rates of youth mental health issues post-pandemic, could culminate in a perfect storm.
Decades-long systemic shortcomings have left suicide among children ages 5 to 11 poorly tracked and addressed. Now, as rates appear to be rising, advocates are strengthening efforts to screen for problems and prevent deaths in younger children.
As states review their Medicaid rolls after the expiration of a pandemic-era prohibition against kicking recipients off the government insurance program, experts say the lack of help available to rural Americans in navigating insurance options puts them at greater risk of losing health coverage than people in metropolitan areas.
LaFayette and other rural areas of the country tend to have high rates of health problems but not enough doctors. Many are adapting by investing in nontraditional prevention and treatment options.
Unsafe sleep environments are among the main reasons accidental suffocation or strangulation is a hard-to-solve public health problem.
Studies suggest official numbers vastly underestimate heat-related injuries and illness on the job. To institute protections, the government must calculate their cost — and the cost of inaction.
The medical dangers of heat are real. But people often ignore public heat alerts or don't realize how vulnerable they are. A new alert system prompts clinicians to talk about heat with patients.
As high school graduates prepare to leave states like California that protect abortion rights for historically Black colleges in states where abortion is banned, they're getting ready to safeguard their reproductive health during college.
Where trees are growing — and who has access to their shade — affects health and well-being, especially in one of the hottest states in the country.
The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 cycle took place without front-runner Donald Trump — and with hardly a mention of health issues save for abortion. Meanwhile, in Florida, patients dropped from the Medicaid program are suing the state for not giving them enough notice or a way to contest their being dropped from the program. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, and Victoria Knight of Axios 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.
Studies show that high rates of Black fetal and infant deaths are largely preventable — and part of systemic failures that contribute to disproportionately high Black maternal mortality rates.
Mandy Cohen, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earned praise for her leadership and communication as the face of North Carolina’s response to covid-19. People in the state’s most vulnerable communities tell a more complicated story.
Federal officials are trying to clamp down on private arrangements among some hospitals to pay themselves back for the Medicaid taxes they’ve paid. State health officials and the influential hospital industry argue that regulators have no jurisdiction over the agreements.
The day-to-day struggles that parents of kids with mental health conditions must navigate have led to their own crisis: The stress can take a physical toll that disrupts parents’ ability to provide care, say psychologists, researchers, and advocates for families.
Nearly a year to the day after Kansas voters surprised the nation by defeating an anti-abortion ballot question, Ohio voters defeated a similar, if cagier, effort to limit access in that state. This week, they rejected an effort to raise the threshold for approval of future ballot measures from a simple majority, which would have made it harder to protect abortion access with yet another ballot question come November. Meanwhile, the number of Americans without health insurance has dropped to an all-time low, though few noticed. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Emmarie Huetteman of KFF Health News join KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, about how the “Medicaid unwinding” is going, as millions have their eligibility for coverage rechecked.
Stark, plaintive testimony from women denied abortion care represents the start of “the 50-year fight to get rid of Dobbs,” one historian says.
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