by Andy Miller KFF Health News When Cassie Cox ended up in the emergency room in January, the Bainbridge, Georgia, resident was grateful for the Obamacare insurance policy she had recently selected for coverage in 2024. Cox, 40, qualified for an Affordable Care Act marketplace plan with no monthly premium due to her relatively low…
Caring for older adults with dementia is stressful, especially when they become physically or verbally aggressive, wander away from home, develop paranoia or hallucinations, engage in inappropriate or repetitive behaviors, or refuse to let caregivers help them. Upward of 95% of patients experience these neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia, which tend to fluctuate over time and…
by Amy Maxmen and Céline Gounder KFF Health News Measles is on the rise in the United States. In the first quarter of this year, the number of cases was about 17 times what it was, on average, during the same period in each of the four years before, according to the Centers for Disease…
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County has launched one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to tackle medical debt, targeting hospitals for their role in feeding a $2.9 billion problem. For over a year, the nation’s most populous county has worked on a comprehensive plan to track patient debt and hospital collection practices;…
For the past year and a half, Tandra Cooper Harris and her husband, Marcus, who both have diabetes, have struggled to fill their prescriptions for the medications they need to control their blood sugar. Without Ozempic or a similar drug, Cooper Harris suffers blackouts, becomes too tired to watch her grandchildren, and struggles to earn…
by Michelle Andrews KFF Health News For many patients, seeing a nurse practitioner has become a routine part of primary care, in which these “NPs” often perform the same tasks that patients have relied on doctors for. But NPs in specialty care? That’s not routine, at least not yet. Increasingly, though, nurse practitioners and physician…
When a doctor in Pasadena, California, reported in October that a hospital patient was exhibiting classic symptoms of dengue fever, such as vomiting, a rash, and bone and joint pain, local disease investigators snapped into action. The mosquito-borne virus is common in places like Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Latin America, and when Americans contract…
by Angela Hart KFF Health News TURLOCK — For much of his young life, Jorge Sanchez regularly gasped for air, at times coughing so violently that he’d almost throw up. His mother whisked him to the emergency room late at night and slept with him to make sure he didn’t stop breathing. “He’s had these…
Marisol Pantoja Toribio found a lump in her breast in early January. Uninsured and living in California without legal status and without her family, the usually happy-go-lucky 43-year-old quickly realized how limited her options were. “I said, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said in Spanish, quickly getting emotional. She immediately worried she might…
by Vanessa Sanchez KFF Health News SACRAMENTO — Families of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities say Gov. Gavin Newsom is reneging on a scheduled raise for the workers who care for their loved ones, and advocates warn of potential lawsuits if disability services become harder to get. Citing California’s budget deficit, the Democratic governor…
Cass Smith-Collins jumped through hoops to get the surgery that would match his chest to his gender. Living in Las Vegas and then 50, he finally felt safe enough to come out as a transgender man. He had his wife’s support and a doctor’s letter showing he had a long history of gender dysphoria, the…
The World Health Organization has issued a report that transforms how the world understands respiratory infections like COVID-19, influenza, and measles. Motivated by grave missteps in the pandemic, the WHO convened about 50 experts in virology, epidemiology, aerosol science, and bioengineering, among other specialties, who spent two years poring through the evidence on how airborne…
by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News Private Medicaid health plans lost millions of members in the past year as pandemic protections that prohibited states from dropping anyone from the government program expired. But despite Medicaid’s unwinding, as it’s known, at least two of the five largest publicly traded companies selling plans have continued to increase…
As a young GI at Fort Ord in Monterey County, California, Dean Osborn spent much of his time in the oceanside woodlands, training on soil and guzzling water from streams and aquifers now known to be contaminated with cancer-causing pollutants. “They were marching the snot out of us,” he said, recalling his year and a…
by Molly Castle Work California Healthline Advocates fear it won’t pay off With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services to youths to help them cope with everything from living with anxiety to body acceptance. Through their phones, young people and some caregivers can meet…
by Aaron Bolton, MTPR KFF Health News KALISPELL — On a cold February morning at the Flathead Warming Center, Tashya Evans waited for help with her Medicaid application as others at the shelter got ready for the day in this northwestern Montana city. Evans said she lost Medicaid coverage in September because she hadn’t received…
Most nursing homes don’t meet them The Biden administration finalized nursing home staffing rules Monday, April 22 that will require thousands of them to hire more nurses and aides — while giving them years to do so. The new rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are the most substantial changes to federal…
by Samantha Liss KFF Health News Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout, even though UnitedHealth told shareholders on Tuesday that business is largely back to normal. “We are still desperately struggling,” said Emily Benson, a therapist in Edina,…
by Samantha Young KFF Health News SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has compromised on long-sought rules that would protect indoor workers from extreme heat, saying tens of thousands of prison and jail employees — and prisoners — would have to wait for relief. The deal comes a month after the administration unexpectedly rejected sweeping…
by Julie Appleby KFF Health News A wide-ranging lawsuit filed on Friday, April 12 outlines a moneymaking scheme by which large insurance sales agency call centers enrolled people into Affordable Care Act plans or switched their coverage, all without their permission. According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of…
by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News Nearly a quarter of adults disenrolled from Medicaid in the past year say they are now uninsured, according to a survey released Friday that details how tens of millions of Americans struggled to retain coverage in the government insurance program for low-income people after pandemic-era protections began expiring last…
A pair of heart devices linked to hundreds of injuries and at least 14 deaths has received the FDA’s most serious recall, the agency announced on Monday, April 15. The recall comes years after surgeons say they first noticed problems with the HeartMate II and HeartMate 3, manufactured by Thoratec Corp., a subsidiary of Abbott…
by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News Nearly a quarter of adults disenrolled from Medicaid in the past year say they are now uninsured, according to a survey released Friday that details how tens of millions of Americans struggled to retain coverage in the government insurance program for low-income people after pandemic-era protections began expiring last…
SACRAMENTO — Nearly a half-million health workers who stand to benefit from California’s nation-leading $25 minimum wage law could be in for a rude awakening if hospitals and other health care providers follow through on potential cuts to hours and benefits. A medical industry challenge to a new minimum wage ordinance in one Southern California…
NEARLY two hours into a Capitol Hill hearing focused on rural health, Rep. Brad Wenstrup emphatically told the committee’s five witnesses: “Hang with us.” Federal lawmakers face a year-end deadline to solidify or scuttle an array of covid-era payment changes for telehealth services that include allowing people to stay in their homes to see a…
by Sarah Jane Tribble KFF Health News For Cindy Westman, $30 buys a week’s worth of gas to drive to medical appointments and run errands. It’s also how much she spent on her monthly internet bill before the federal Affordable Connectivity Program stepped in and covered her payments. “When you have low income and you…
by Angela Hart and Samantha Young KFF Health News SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has abandoned proposed protections for millions of California workers toiling in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot workplaces — upending a regulatory process that had been years in the making. The administration’s eleventh-hour move, which it attributed…
by Sarah Jane Tribble KFF Health News For Cindy Westman, $30 buys a week’s worth of gas to drive to medical appointments and run errands. It’s also how much she spent on her monthly internet bill before the federal Affordable Connectivity Program stepped in and covered her payments. “When you have low income and you…
Bart Klion, 95, and his wife, Barbara, faced a tough choice in January: The upstate New York couple learned that this year they could keep either their private, Medicare Advantage insurance plan — or their doctors at Saratoga Hospital. The Albany Medical Center system, which includes their hospital, is leaving the Klions’ Humana plan —…
From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major “normal” thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns. Even before the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformation’s rapid spread. In March 2020,…
