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The new Medicare GLP-1 Bridge program promises eligible beneficiaries access to popular weight loss drugs for as little as $50 a month. But for some, having the very medical conditions these drugs are approved to treat means they don't qualify for the discount.
California is the first to launch state-branded insulin as Gov. Gavin Newsom tries to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. But the new CalRx drug label has been slow to reach pharmacies and patients.
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The White House says encampment sweeps have enhanced the capital, but city leaders estimate nearly 700 homeless people roam by day and bed down outdoors by night. Some have scattered to the suburbs while others avoid detection, making it hard for medical providers to care for them.
High-deductible health insurance plans are increasingly common, and many more enrollees will likely need to choose such plans for the coming year. For those with chronic conditions like diabetes, the gamble can mean compromised care and long-term consequences.
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.
Nearly 3 million Americans live sicker, shorter lives in the hundreds of rural counties where doctor shortages are the worst and poor internet connections mean little or no access to telehealth services.
With continuous glucose monitors, students with Type 1 diabetes no longer have to visit the school nurse for a finger prick. But some parents say it falls to them to keep an eye on blood sugar levels from home or work — even though they may not be able to quickly reach their child when something’s wrong.
GLP-1 agonist medications such as Ozempic accounted for 10% of the North Carolina state employee health plan’s prescription drug spending, so the state is no longer covering them for weight loss alone. Still, it did decide to cover them for Medicaid patients’ weight loss. A look inside the state’s coverage calculus.
Minnesota led the way on insulin affordability, culminating in 2020 when Gov. Tim Walz signed a law going further to cut costs than other state laws. Now, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are vying for support from people with diabetes.
If she grabs the baton from President Joe Biden to become the new presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris would widely be expected to take an aggressive stance in support of abortion access — hitting former President Donald Trump on an issue that could undermine his chances of victory.
A debate marked by President Joe Biden’s faltering performance featured clashes over insulin costs, inflation, abortion, immigration, and Jan. 6.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The makers of Ozempic and Mounjaro charge list prices of around $1,000 a month for the diabetes and obesity drugs, and insurers are reluctant to pick up the tab. Often, low-income patients have to resort to less effective treatments.
Most Medicare enrollees likely were not paying a monthly average of $400 — as President Joe Biden stated — before the insulin cap took effect. However, because costs and other factors result in widely varying prices, some Medicare enrollees might have paid that much in a given month.
With artificial intelligence in health care on the rise, eye screenings for diabetic retinopathy are emerging as one of the first proven use cases of AI-based diagnostics in a clinical setting.
Did the price of insulin go down? It’s not quite that simple. On this episode of “An Arm and a Leg,” producer Emily Pisacreta explores recent changes to the cost of the diabetes medication.
Doctors, patients, and hospitals have railed for years about the prior authorization processes that health insurers use to decide whether they’ll pay for patients’ drugs or medical procedures. The Biden administration announced a crackdown in January, but some state lawmakers are looking to go further.
Adults who develop one autoimmune form of diabetes are often misdiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Those wrong diagnoses make it harder to get the appropriate medications and technology to manage their blood sugar. Many Black patients wonder if their race plays a role.
California’s Medicaid program is making it easier for people with diabetes to obtain the supplies and equipment they need to manage their blood sugar, partly by relaxing preauthorization requirements that can cause life-threatening delays.
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