The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
241 - 260 of 516 Results
Three secretaries of Health and Human Services, who served under Presidents Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama, gathered this week for a rare, candid conversation hosted by the Aspen Ideas Festival and KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” about the experience of being the nation’s top health official.
What does a day in the life of the nation’s top health official really look like? And how much of their agenda is set by the White House? In this special episode of KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” — taped before a live audience at Aspen Ideas: Health, part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, in Aspen, Colorado — host and chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner leads a rare conversation with the current and two former U.S. secretaries of Health and Human Services. Secretary Xavier Becerra and former secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Alex Azar talk candidly about what it takes to run a department with more than 80,000 employees and a budget larger than those of many countries.
There is no direct evidence that screening women in their 40s will save lives, yet modeling suggests expanding routine mammography to include them might avert 1.3 deaths per 1,000. Highlighting the risk of false positives, some specialists call for a more personalized approach.
The Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with monitoring denials both by Obamacare health plans and those offered through employers and insurers. As insurers’ denials become more common, they sometimes defy not just medical standards of care but sheer logic. Why hasn’t the agency fulfilled its assignment?
Family planning clinics are getting caught between state abortion bans and a federal requirement to refer patients for abortion care on request.
The federal government’s ambitious plan to end the HIV epidemic, launched in 2019, has generated new ways to reach at-risk populations in targeted communities across the South. But health officials, advocates, and people living with HIV worry significant headwinds will keep the program from reaching its goals.
The May 11 expiration of the federal government’s pandemic emergency declaration will affect patient care across a broad range of settings, including telemedicine, hospitals, and nursing homes.
The removals, detailed in emails between state and federal health officials, hinged on disagreements over how states could disenroll people during the public health emergency. Consumer advocates fear the alleged violation signals the mess to come on April 1, when the pandemic-era Medicaid coverage mandate ends.
Since 2006, federal officials have been charged with setting up a network to let various parts of the U.S. health system share information during emergencies. It still hasn’t been built or even planned, even after the communication and data-sharing failures put on display during the pandemic.
Our partners at PolitiFact fact-checked a range of President Joe Biden’s statements, including key health-related comments.
As flexible treatment options spurred by the covid pandemic wane, patients relying on medications classified as controlled substances worry that without action to extend the loosened rules, it’ll be harder to get their meds.
In this special episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, talks with host Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, about where we are in the pandemic and how we should transition out of the public health emergency. This episode was taped on Dec. 20.
Colorado has joined Florida, New Hampshire, and New Mexico in seeking federal permission to import prescription drugs from Canada. President Joe Biden endorsed the approach in his 2020 campaign but has yet to approve any state plan.
A months-long KHN examination of the system meant to bar fraudsters from Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health programs found gaping holes and expansive gray areas through which banned individuals slip to repeatedly bilk taxpayer-funded programs.
For decades, many women of color, particularly those with low incomes, had little control over their family planning care. Now, a White House effort aims to give patients more choices as abortion care evaporates, but patients remain wary of providers.
Some people with long covid have fallen through the cracks of the government’s disability system, which was time-consuming and difficult to navigate even before the pandemic.
An Indiana man's family sued a state-owned nursing home for alleged mistreatment. A U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case could determine the right of many Americans to sue government agencies.
Independent medical practices keep closing as doctors join behemoth hospital groups or leave the field. Research suggests that’s bad news for patients. Studies repeatedly conclude that consolidation in the health care industry is driving up costs while showing no clear evidence of improved care.
Private Medicare Advantage health plans are increasingly ending coverage for skilled nursing or rehab services before medical providers think patients are healthy enough to go home, doctors and patient advocates say.
Montana is one of the latest states seeking to increase oversight of nonprofit hospitals’ giving to ensure they justify their tax-exempt status.
© 2026 KFF