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The latest iteration of President Joe Biden's social-spending package would close the health insurance gap for at least 2.2 million people, making a huge difference especially in the South, where political opposition has blocked Medicaid expansion.
Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.
The arguments before the justices did not deal directly with the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks. Instead, they centered on the unique mechanism in the law that gives state officials no role in enforcing the ban.
Certain patients who couldn't get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
The federal government’s hospital penalty program finishes its first decade by lowering payments to nearly half the nation’s hospitals for readmitting too many Medicare patients within a month. Penalties, though often small, are credited with helping reduce the number of patients returning for another Medicare stay within 30 days.
“Obstetrical emergency departments” are a new feature in some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask the parents of Baby Gus.
With an eye to shutting down Medicare drug price negotiations, drug companies and their lobbying groups gave roughly $1.6 million in the first six months of 2021, with Democrats edging closer than they have in a decade to Republicans’ total haul.
The state’s unique health system controls what hospitals can charge for services.
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it's lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can't function if even just a few people quit.
A frank, practical and empowering conversation about this pervasive, systemic problem of bias, discrimination or stereotyping based on age.
Negotiations on the health parts of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda are getting serious but have yet to produce a deal every Democrat can support. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration remains without a nominated leader but manages to take the first steps toward approving over-the-counter hearing aids. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Tami Luhby of CNN and Rachel Cohrs of Stat join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read too.
Managers are trapped in a pricey hiring cycle, competing for critical care nurses who can monitor covid patients on life support. Some hospitals are looking abroad to replace staffers who quit to become travel nurses or leave the profession.
Scientists treating kids for MIS-C point to rare genes, leaky guts and a “superantigen.”
KHN teamed up with Hulu for a discussion of America's opioid crisis, following the Oct. 13 premiere of the online streaming service’s new series “Dopesick.”
Like almost everything else associated with the covid-19 pandemic, partisans are taking sides over whether vaccines should be mandated. Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill are still struggling to find compromise in their effort to expand health insurance and other social programs. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jen Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times and Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews best-selling author Beth Macy about her book “Dopesick,” and the new Hulu miniseries based on it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to regulate out-of-control health care spending in California. The effort is being shaped by the very health industry players that would be regulated.
But Americans generally have little confidence that the White House or Congress will recommend the right thing, a new poll shows.
At issue is whether transplant patients who refuse the shots are not only putting themselves at greater risk for serious illness and death from covid-19, but also squandering scarce organs that could benefit others.
Patients sickened in heat waves, flooding and wildfire have raised awareness of climate change’s impact on health. Now, some hospitals are building solar panels and cutting waste to reduce their own carbon footprints, with support from a new office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But the industry is moving slowly.
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