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Although nearly 40% of Americans 60 and older are obese, Medicare doesn’t cover weight loss medications. Meanwhile, studies haven’t thoroughly examined new drugs’ impact on older adults.
Congress has until October to avert cuts to a Medicaid program intended to support safety-net hospitals that, in practice, improves the bottom lines of other hospitals, too. Hospital leaders say now is not a good time for the cuts — which lawmakers have so far postponed 13 times.
House Republican legislation promises more health insurance options but fewer protections, even as the Biden administration seeks to rein in short-term plans, which were expanded in the Trump era.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has called misinformation one of the deadliest killers in the United States. As the FDA tries to fight that scourge, it sometimes stumbles.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
A bankruptcy judge will soon decide whether a Central Valley hospital needs to liquidate to repay its creditors. Its largest creditor, St. Agnes Medical Center, is the very entity that backed out of purchasing the Madera Community Hospital last December.
Doctors and hospitals hold an exalted position in American life, retaining public confidence even as other institutions such as government, law enforcement, and the media are losing people’s trust. But with health care debt out of hand, medical providers risk their good standing.
With the community’s help, former co-workers came together to fill gaps in care left by the loss of doctors and departments at a Gallup, New Mexico, hospital.
State officials have promised to boost funding for California’s Medicaid program by $11.1 billion starting next year, with most of that money earmarked for higher payments to doctors, hospitals, and other providers. But the details have yet to be worked out, and powerful health industry groups are jockeying for position.
It’s been the summer of broken weather records around the world — for heat, rain, and wildfire smoke — advertising the risks of climate change in a big way. But, apparently, it’s not enough to break the logjam in Washington over how to address the growing climate crisis. Meanwhile, in Texas, women who were unable to get care for pregnancy complications took their stories to court, and Congress gears up to — maybe — do something about prescription drug prices. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join Julie Rovner, KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Meena Seshamani, the top administrator for the federal Medicare program.
As politicians bash privately run hospitals for their aggressive debt collection tactics, consumer advocates say one North Carolina family’s six-figure medical bill is an example of how state attorneys general and state-operated hospitals also can harm patients financially.
A little-noticed provision of sweeping legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration would make it easier to fly human organs from donor to recipient.
Efforts to improve addiction care in jails and prisons are underway across the country. But a rural Alabama county with one of the nation’s highest overdose rates shows how change is slow, while law enforcement officials continue to treat addiction as a crime rather than a medical condition.
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval is viewed as groundbreaking, but many details still must be figured out.
To defeat smallpox in South Asia, public health workers had to navigate the region’s layered cultural ideas about the virus. They also dreamed big. In Episode 1, host Céline Gounder wonders how the U.S. might tap into similar “moral imagination” to prepare for the next public health crisis.
Many people working in global health thought eradicating smallpox was impossible. They were wrong. Season 2 of the Epidemic podcast, “Eradicating Smallpox,” is a journey to South Asia during the last days of variola major smallpox. Explore the timeline to learn about significant dates in the final push to end the virus.
Researchers have found that while obesity at any age risks harming health, a few extra pounds in later life isn’t cause for concern.
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Even as the covid-19 pandemic wanes, litigation — whether about vaccines, masks, or a range of other public health policies made during the pandemic — isn’t about to end.
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s veto disappointed and bewildered those seeking to address low-income residents’ long wait for assisted living or in-home care.
