by Susan Jaffe KFF Health News 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…
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration unexpectedly yanked its support from a sweeping proposal that would have protected millions of California’s indoor workers from dangerous heat, saying it can’t endorse it without knowing the projected costs to the state. But the board that oversees worker safety immediately defied the administration Thursday, March 21 by unanimously…
by Phil Galewitz and Holly K. Hacker KFF Health News Billy Abbott, a retired Army medic, wakes at 6 every morning, steps on the bathroom scale, and uses a cuff to take his blood pressure. The devices send those measurements electronically to his doctor in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and a health technology company based in…
by Harris Meyer KFF Health News Shelly Olson’s mother, who has dementia, has lived at the Scandia Village nursing home in rural Sister Bay, Wisconsin, for almost five years. At first, Olson said, her mother received great care at the facility, then owned by a not-for-profit organization, the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society. Then in…
by Amy Maxmen KFF Health News Gayle Borne has fostered more than 300 children in Springfield, Tennessee. She’s cared for kids who have rarely seen a doctor — kids so neglected that they cannot speak. Such children are now even more vulnerable because of a law Tennessee passed last year that requires the direct consent…
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday, March 11 that he is throwing his weight behind legislation to bar medical debt from showing up on consumer credit reports, a Democratic-led effort to offer protection to patients squeezed by health care bills. Bonta is a sponsor of Sen. Monique Limón’s bill, which seeks to block health…
by Laurie Udesky KFF Health News California’s efforts to expand access to abortion care are enabling more types of medical practitioners to perform certain abortion procedures — potentially a boon for patients in rural areas especially, but a source of concern for doctors’ groups that have long fought efforts to expand the role of non-physicians….
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Monday, March 11 that he is throwing his weight behind legislation to bar medical debt from showing up on consumer credit reports, a Democratic-led effort to offer protection to patients squeezed by health care bills. Bonta is a sponsor of Sen. Monique Limón’s bill, which seeks to block health…
President Joe Biden touted his administration’s accomplishments in health care in a wide-ranging State of the Union address on Thursday evening that touched on subjects such as immigration, the economy, crime, job growth, infrastructure, and the Israel-Hamas war. With Biden and former President Donald Trump now the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, Biden used the…
President Joe Biden is counting on outrage over abortion restrictions to help drive turnout for his reelection. Former President Donald Trump is promising to take another swing at repealing Obamacare. But around America’s kitchen tables, those are hardly the only health topics voters want to hear about in the 2024 campaigns. A new KFF tracking…
SACRAMENTO — California voters will decide March 5 whether to pump billions more dollars into combating the nation’s worst homelessness crisis, an investment Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom argues will finally provide the housing and treatment so badly needed by tens of thousands of homeless people. Newsom is spearheading Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond he…
by Katheryn Houghton KFF Health News States are redefining when medical professionals can get mental health treatment without risking notifying the boards that regulate their licenses. Too often, health care workers wait to seek counseling or addiction treatment, causing their work and patient care to suffer, said Jean Branscum, CEO of the Montana Medical Association,…
Nurse midwife Beverly Maldonado recalls a pregnant woman arriving at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Maryland after her water broke. It was weeks before the baby would have any chance of survival, and the patient’s wishes were clear, she recalled: “Why am I staying pregnant then? What’s the point?” the patient pleaded. But the doctors…
Millions of Medi-Cal beneficiaries can now save for a rainy day, keep an inheritance, or hold on to a modest nest egg, without losing coverage, thanks to an eligibility change phased in over the past year and a half. It also has opened the door for thousands who previously did not qualify for Medi-Cal, the…
by Elisabeth Rosenthal KFF Health News GoFundMe started as a crowdfunding site for underwriting “ideas and dreams,” and, as GoFundMe’s co-founders, Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse, once put it, “for life’s important moments.” In the early years, it funded honeymoon trips, graduation gifts, and church missions to overseas hospitals in need. Now GoFundMe has become…
Halfway through what will be the biggest purge of Medicaid beneficiaries in a one-year span, enrollment in the government-run health insurance program is on track to return to roughly pre-pandemic levels. Medicaid, which covers low-income and disabled people, and the related Children’s Health Insurance Program grew to a record 94 million enrollees as a result…
States are plowing billions of dollars into a high-stakes health care experiment that’s exploding around the country: using scarce public health insurance money to provide housing for the poorest and sickest Americans. California is going the biggest, pumping $12 billion into an ambitious Medicaid initiative largely to help homeless patients find housing, pay for it,…
by Amy Maxmen KFF Health News Rates of routine childhood vaccination hit a 10-year low in 2023. That, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, puts about 250,000 kindergartners at risk for measles, which often leads to hospitalization and can cause death. In recent weeks, an infant and two young children have been hospitalized amid…
Clinicians at Valley-Wide Health Systems never know who will appear at their clinic in San Luis, a town of about 600 people in southern Colorado. “If someone’s in labor, they’ll show up. If someone has a laceration, they’ll show up,” said nurse practitioner Emelin Martinez, the chief medical officer for the health care system serving…
by Kylie Mohr KFF Health News Every year, wildfires across the western U.S. and Canada send plumes of smoke into the sky. When that smoke blows into southwestern Idaho’s Treasure Valley, it blankets Boise-area residents in dirty air. They include seniors living in long-term care facilities, many of whom are considered an at-risk population for…
by Liz Szabo KFF Health News Charity Watkins sensed something was deeply wrong when she experienced exhaustion after her daughter was born. At times, Watkins, then 30, had to stop on the stairway to catch her breath. Her obstetrician said postpartum depression likely caused the weakness and fatigue. When Watkins, who is Black, complained of…
by Julie Rovner KFF Health News On the presidential campaign trail, former President Donald Trump is, once again, promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — a nebulous goal that became one of his administration’s splashiest policy failures. “We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe,”…
by Don Thompson Kaiser Health News SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom is revisiting California’s phase-in of a nation-leading $25 minimum wage for health workers in the face of a projected $38 billion deficit, less than three months after he approved the measure. But renegotiating wages could threaten a delicate compromise between unions and the health…
It’s winter, that cozy season that brings crackling fireplaces, indoor gatherings — and a wave of respiratory illness. Nearly four years since the pandemic emerged, people are growing weary of dealing with it, but the virus is not done with us. Nationally, a sharp uptick in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for COVID-19, influenza, and…
by Samantha Young KFF Health News The stifling heat inside some warehouses where workers might spend 10-hour days isn’t just a summer problem. In Southern California, it can feel like summer all year. It’s easy to break into a sweat and grow tired, workers say. The ventilation feels inconsistent, they say, and workers have testified…
In 2016, Richard Timmins went to a free informational seminar to learn more about Medicare coverage. “I listened to the insurance agent and, basically, he really promoted Medicare Advantage,” Timmins said. The agent described less expensive and broader coverage offered by the plans, which are funded largely by the government but administered by private insurance…
The stifling heat inside some warehouses where workers might spend 10-hour days isn’t just a summer problem. In Southern California, it can feel like summer all year. It’s easy to break into a sweat and grow tired, workers say. The ventilation feels inconsistent, they say, and workers have testified in a public hearing about nosebleeds,…
by Lauren Sausser KFF Health News Marine Corps veteran Ron Winters clearly recalls his doctor’s sobering assessment of his bladder cancer diagnosis in August 2022. “This is bad,” the 66-year-old Durant, Oklahoma, resident remembered his urologist saying. Winters braced for the fight of his life. Little did he anticipate, however, that he wouldn’t be waging…
A growing number of states are opening taxpayer-funded health insurance programs to immigrants, including those living in the U.S. without authorization, even as Republicans assail President Joe Biden over a dramatic increase in illegal crossings of the southern border. Eleven states and Washington, D.C., together provide full health insurance coverage to more than 1 million…
by Sam Whitehead KFF Health News GAINESVILLE — In early December, Donald Brown stood nervously in the Hall County Courthouse, concerned he’d be sent back to jail. The 55-year-old struggles with depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. He worried a judge would terminate him from a special diversion program meant to keep people with mental illness…
