Watch: Why Is Having a Baby So Expensive in the US?
KFF Health News video producer Hannah Norman breaks down why new parents are getting billed thousands of dollars for births.
The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
101 - 120 of 1,859 Results
KFF Health News video producer Hannah Norman breaks down why new parents are getting billed thousands of dollars for births.
With less than three weeks before the deadline to pass legislation to keep the federal government running, lawmakers are still far apart on a strategy. Democrats hope Republicans will agree to extend expanded tax credits for the Affordable Care Act as part of a compromise, but so far Republicans are not negotiating. Meanwhile, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released his long-awaited “Make America Healthy Again” report, with few specific action items. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
The GOP said its overhaul of Medicaid was aimed at reducing fraud and getting more adult beneficiaries to work. Among the likely side effects: fewer services and doctors for treating sick children.
The Trump administration has pushed a significant amount of health costs to states, whose budgets may already be strained by declining state tax revenues, a slowdown in pandemic spending, and economic uncertainty. State and local governments now face difficult decisions.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is hunting for Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse in at least six Democratic-led states that expanded coverage to low-income and disabled immigrants without legal status, according to records obtained by KFF Health News and The Associated Press.
Michigan’s former top health official spent a year and $30 million building a system to implement work requirements for Medicaid recipients. The difficulties he encountered have him worried about 40 states and Washington, D.C., having to launch such systems by 2027.
As states prepare to implement changes to Medicaid required by President Donald Trump’s recent tax-and-spending law, tribal leaders say they are concerned Native American enrollees could lose their coverage, despite exemptions made by Congress.
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, the twin government programs that have shaped the health care system into what it is today. In this special episode, KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner interviews two experts on the history, significance, and future of these programs: Medicare historian and University of North Carolina professor Jonathan Oberlander and George Washington University professor emerita Sara Rosenbaum, who has studied Medicaid since nearly its beginning and has helped shape Medicaid policy over the past four decades.
The housing crisis is requiring creative scrambling and new partnerships from health care organizations to keep older patients out of expensive nursing homes as homelessness grows.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
President Donald Trump’s latest executive order about science and medicine seeks to take funding decisions out of the hands of career scientists and give them to political appointees instead. And a gunman, reportedly disgruntled over covid vaccines, shoots at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a law enforcement officer. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Aaron Carroll, president and CEO of the health services research group AcademyHealth, about how to restore the public’s trust in public health.
In rural Colorado and across rural America, Medicaid is a lifeline, especially for people who wouldn’t otherwise have easy access to health care. That includes low-income seniors who need supplemental coverage in addition to Medicare, and people of all ages with disabilities.
It’s a difficult rite of passage for young adults without job-based insurance. Here are some tips for getting started.
Young adults without jobs that provide insurance find their options are limited and expensive. The problem is about to get worse.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
GOP lawmakers in 10 states have refused for a decade to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. But when President Donald Trump got another whack at Obamacare, these holdout states went unrewarded.
The Health and Human Services secretary is winding down nearly $500 million in mRNA research funding, citing false claims that the technology is ineffective against respiratory illnesses — and notching a victory for critics of the covid vaccines. And President Donald Trump is demanding drugmakers drop their prices, quickly, but it’s unclear how he could make them comply. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KFF Health News’ Emmarie Huetteman to discuss these stories and more.
More than a dozen states are seeking their own versions of Medicaid work requirements. But the incoming federal standards pose questions around how much leeway states have to design their rules.
© 2026 KFF