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Insurance agents say it’s too easy to access consumer information on the Affordable Care Act federal marketplace. Policyholders can lose their doctors and access to prescriptions. Some end up owing back taxes.
Hospitals are increasingly stretching a velvet rope, offering “concierge service” to an affluent clientele. Critics say the practice exacerbates primary care shortages.
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media in recent weeks to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The Supreme Court this week heard its first abortion case since overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, about an appeals court ruling that would dramatically restrict the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. But while it seems likely that this case could be dismissed on a technicality, abortion opponents have more challenges in the pipeline. Meanwhile, health issues are heating up on the campaign trail, as Republicans continue to take aim at Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act — all things Democrats are delighted to defend. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Tony Leys, who wrote a KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about Medicare and a very expensive air-ambulance ride. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week they think you should read, too.
Historically, alcohol use disorder has disproportionately affected men. But targeted advertising and changes in societal norms over the past 50 years have led to an upsurge in alcohol-related diseases and deaths among women. “It’s a very taboo topic,” one expert said.
For years, addiction response teams have traveled around Florida to connect people who have overdosed with resources and recovery centers. Now, a handful have a new tool in their kit: buprenorphine, which can help prevent the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that lead to more drug use.
Ballad Health was granted the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in 2018. Since then, its emergency rooms have become more than three times as slow.
Most healthy men produce sufficient testosterone as they age. Yet online ads and telehealth sites are promoting testosterone drugs with flawed promises of boosting libido and busting stomach fat.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s Georgia Pathways to Coverage program has seen anemic enrollment while chalking up millions in start-up costs — largely in technology and consulting fees. Critics say the money’s being wasted on a costly and ineffective alternative to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
As money flows to abortion rights initiatives in states, some donors focus on where anger over the "Dobbs" ruling could propel voter turnout and spur Democratic victories up and down the ballot, including in key Senate races and the White House.
Demand for help monitoring patients’ vital signs remotely has taken off since a Medicare change in 2019. Dozens of companies now push the service to help overburdened primary care doctors — and as a revenue stream. But some policy experts say its growth has outpaced oversight and evidence of effectiveness.
New federal funds aim to address an array of problems created by highway construction in minority neighborhoods. These are economic, social, and, perhaps above all, public health problems. In New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood, competing plans for how to deal with harm done by the Claiborne Expressway reveal the challenge of how to mitigate them meaningfully.
Years of struggle prepared residents in Cabell County, West Virginia, to confront the latest wave of the opioid epidemic as mixtures of fentanyl and other drugs claim lives nationwide.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee’s new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children’s health.
Price worries, bureaucratic obstacles, and “I’m-over-covid-itis” slow uptake of a drug that’s complicated to take but often effective.
The cyberattack on a unit of UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division is the worst on the health care industry in U.S. history, hospitals say. Providers struggling to get paid for care say the response by the insurer and the Biden administration has been inadequate.
At last, Congress is getting half of its annual spending bills across the finish line, albeit five months after the start of the fiscal year. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address, an over-the-counter birth control pill is (finally) available, and controversy erupts over new public health guidelines for covid-19 isolation. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Neera Tanden, the White House domestic policy adviser, about Biden’s health agenda. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
A mathematical model designed to direct spending of opioid settlement funds is at the center of a debate over whether to invest in technology to guide long-term decisions or focus on the immediate needs of people in addiction.
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