Health Industry

Latest KFF Health News Stories

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Live From Aspen: Health and the 2024 Elections

Podcast

Health policy may not be the top issue in this year’s presidential and congressional elections, but it’s likely to play a key role. President Joe Biden and Democrats intend to hold Republicans responsible for the Supreme Court’s unpopular ruling overturning the right to abortion, and former President Donald Trump aims to take credit for government efforts to lower prescription drug prices — even in cases in which he played no role. Meanwhile, some critical health care issues, such as those involving Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, are unlikely to get discussed much, even though the party in power after the elections would control the future of those programs. This week, in an episode taped before a live audience at the Aspen Ideas: Health festival in Aspen, Colorado, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.

Like Doctors, More Nurse Practitioners Are Heading Into Specialty Care

KFF Health News Original

If your doctor can’t see you now, maybe the nurse practitioner can. Nurse practitioners have long been a reliable backstop for the primary-care-physician shortfall, which is estimated at nearly 21,000 doctors this year and projected to get worse. But easy access to NPs could be tested in coming years. Even though nearly 90 percent of […]

California Dabbles With Reining in Health Spending

KFF Health News Original

California is now among the states trying to keep health-care costs down by setting spending caps — a task that pits public officials against a deeply entrenched and heavily lawyered set of players. It’s uncertain whether the state can get insurers, hospitals and medical groups to collaborate on containing costs even as they jockey for […]

End of Internet Subsidy Leaves Millions Facing Telehealth Disconnect

KFF Health News Original

When the clock struck midnight on May 31, more than 23 million low-income households were dropped from a federal internet subsidy program that for years had helped them get connected. The Affordable Connectivity Program was created in 2021, in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, to help people plug into jobs, schools and health care by reducing their internet […]

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Nursing Home Staffing Rules Prompt Pushback

Podcast

The nursing home industry — as well as a healthy number of Congress members — are all pushing back on the Biden administration’s new rules on nursing home staffing. Industry officials say that there are not enough workers to meet the requirements and that the costs would be prohibitive. Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to force Republicans to explain their exact positions on assuring access to contraceptives and in vitro fertilization. Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Bram Sable-Smith, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about a free cruise that turned out to be anything but.

Biden Wants Hospitals To Report Data on Gunshot Wounds

KFF Health News Original

The Biden administration is enlisting America’s doctors to help combat gun violence. About 160 health-care executives and officials have been invited to the White House today and Friday to promote public health solutions to the epidemic. A top priority, I’m told: The White House wants hospital emergency departments to collect more data about gunshot injuries […]