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Latest KFF Health News Stories

‘Please Tell Me My Life Is Worth A LITTLE Of Your Discomfort,’ Nurse Pleads

KFF Health News Original

Health care workers on the front lines of the COVID crisis have spent exhausting months working and self-quarantining off-duty to keep from infecting others, including their families. Encountering people who indignantly refuse face coverings can feel like a slap in the face.

Coronavirus Crisis Disrupts Treatment For Another Epidemic: Addiction

KFF Health News Original

The coronavirus has forced drug rehabilitation centers to scale back operations or temporarily close, leaving people who have another potentially deadly disease — addiction — with fewer opportunities for help.

‘I Couldn’t Let Her Be Alone’: A Peaceful Death Amid the COVID Scourge

KFF Health News Original

For three years, staffers at UCLA Health have been quietly fulfilling final wishes for dying patients in the intensive care unit. Amid the isolating forces of the pandemic, their work has become all the more meaningful.

Among Those Disrupted By COVID-19: The Nation’s Newest Doctors

KFF Health News Original

For new medical residents, this has been a year like no other. In part that’s because getting from here to there — from medical school to residency training sites — has been complicated by the coronavirus.

Hollowed-Out Public Health System Faces More Cuts Amid Virus

KFF Health News Original

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources necessary to confront the worst health crisis in a century. An investigation by The Associated Press and KHN has found that since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and for local health departments by 18%. At least 38,000 public health jobs have disappeared, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems. That has left the nation unprepared to deal with a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million people and killed more than 126,000.

How We Reported ‘Underfunded And Under Threat’

KFF Health News Original

To assess the state of the public health system in the United States, KHN and The Associated Press analyzed data on government spending and staffing at national, state and local levels. Here’s what data we used and how we did it.

Six Takeaways Of The KHN-AP Investigation Into The Erosion Of Public Health

KFF Health News Original

KHN and The Associated Press sought to understand how decades of cuts to public health departments by federal, state and local governments has affected the system meant to protect the nation’s health. Here are six key takeaways from the KHN-AP investigation.

Hospital Executive Charged In $1.4B Rural Hospital Billing Scheme

KFF Health News Original

In an investigation last year, KHN detailed the rise and fall of Miami businessman Jorge A. Perez’s rural hospital empire, which spanned eight states and encompassed half of the rural hospital bankruptcies in 2019.

KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: High Court’s Surprising Abortion Decision

KFF Health News Original

In a decision that surprised both sides of the polarized abortion debate, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times join KHN’s Julie Rovner to break down what happened, what comes next and how this case could provide a clue to the one challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Listen: What Counts In Measuring The Full COVID Death Toll? It’s Complicated

KFF Health News Original

KHN senior Colorado correspondent Markian Hawryluk joined KUNC’s Erin O’Toole on “Colorado Edition” and appeared on WNHN’s “The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen” to discuss his recent story on how difficult it is to measure the full death toll from the pandemic.