by Charlotte Huff, Kaiser Health News Eighteen months after April Adcox learned she had skin cancer, she finally returned to Charleston’s Medical University of South Carolina last May to seek treatment. By then, the reddish area along her hairline had grown from a 2-inch circle to cover nearly her entire forehead. It oozed fluid and…
A majority of Americans say they or a family member has experienced gun violence, such as witnessing a shooting, being threatened by a person with a gun, or being shot, according to a sweeping new survey. The national survey of 1,271 adults conducted by KFF revealed the severe physical and psychological harm exacted by firearm…
At a health-screening event in Sarasota, Florida, people gathered in a parking lot and waited their turn for blood pressure or diabetes checks. The event was held in Sarasota’s Newtown neighborhood, a historically Black community. Local Tracy Green, 54, joined the line outside a pink-and-white bus that offered free mammograms. “It’s a blessing because some…
When a federal judge in Texas declared unconstitutional a popular part of the Affordable Care Act that ensures no-cost preventive care for certain services, such as screening exams for conditions such as diabetes, hepatitis, and certain cancers, it left a lot of people with a lot of questions. On the face of it, the March…
by Samantha Young Kaiser Health News SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom declared last month that California was “done” doing business with Walgreens after the pharmacy chain said it would not distribute an abortion pill in 21 states where Republicans threatened legal action. Since then, KHN has learned that the Democratic governor must compromise on his…
by Harris Meyer, Kaiser Health News Dr. Jacqui O’Kane took a job with a hospital in southern Georgia in 2020, as the lone doctor in a primary care clinic in a small town that’s a medically underserved area. She soon attracted nearly 3,000 patients. But she said the hospital pressed her to take more new…
by Julie Appleby and Michelle Andrews Kaiser Health News A federal judge on Thursday, March 30 overturned a portion of the Affordable Care Act that makes preventive services, such as some cancer screenings, free to enrollees, a decision that could affect health insurance policyholders nationwide. The decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern…
The Biden administration’s decision to end the COVID -19 public health emergency in May will institute sweeping changes across the health care system that go far beyond many people having to pay more for COVID tests. In response to the pandemic, the federal government in 2020 suspended many of its rules on how care is…
by Angela Hart Kaiser Health News SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration is struggling to contain a worsening homelessness crisis despite record spending, is trying something bold: tapping federal health care funding to cover rent for homeless people and those at risk of losing their housing. States are barred from using federal Medicaid dollars…
by Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News Consider three hypothetical women in their mid-70s, all living alone in identical economic circumstances with the same array of ailments: diabetes, arthritis, and high blood pressure. Ms. Green stays home most of the time and sometimes goes a week without seeing people. But she’s in frequent touch by phone…
GOV. Gavin Newsom may have been prescient when he acknowledged free speech concerns as he signed California’s COVID misinformation bill last fall. In a message to lawmakers, the governor warned of “the chilling effect other potential laws may have” on the ability of doctors to speak frankly with patients but expressed confidence that the one…
Jessica Layman estimates she has called more than 150 doctors in the past few years in her search for someone to prescribe opioids for her chronic pain. “A lot of them are straight-up insulting,” said the 40-year-old, who lives in Dallas. “They say things like ‘We don’t treat drug addicts.’” Layman has tried a host…
by Liz Szabo, Kaiser Health News Diego never imagined he’d carry a gun. Not as a child, when shots were fired outside his Chicago-area home. Not at age 12, when one of his friends was gunned down. Diego’s mind changed at 14, when he and his friends were getting ready to walk to midnight Mass…
by Noam N. Levey Kaiser Health News Dozens of advocates for patients and consumers, citing widespread harm caused by medical debt, are pushing the Biden administration to take more aggressive steps to protect Americans from medical bills and debt collectors. In letters to the IRS and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the groups call for…
by Angela Hart and Bernard J. Wolfson, Kaiser Health News Newborns. Former inmates. College students. Expectant moms. People with disabilities. Foster kids. Homeless people. Single dads. Your neighbor. Your co-worker. You. California’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, serves a whopping 15.4 million people, offering care from cradle to grave: Half of all births are covered by Medi-Cal, as…
by Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News There’s no cure, yet, for Alzheimer’s disease. But dozens of programs developed in the past 20 years can improve the lives of both people living with dementia and their caregivers. Unlike support groups, these programs teach caregivers concrete skills such as how to cope with stress, make home environments…
A doctor found cysts in Lilia Becerril’s right breast five years ago, but the 51-year-old lacks health insurance. She said she can’t afford the imaging to find out if they’re cancerous. Becerril earns about $52,000 a year at a nonprofit in California’s Central Valley, putting her and her husband, Armando, at more than double the…
SACRAMENTO — California is revamping how it rewards nursing homes to get them to improve patient care. Rather than limit bonuses to top-performing facilities, the state will hand out additional Medicaid payments next year to nursing homes — even low-rated ones — that hire additional workers, reduce staff turnover, or improve quality of care. Facilities…
by Don Thompson, Kaiser Health News ALL day and sometimes into the night, buses and vans pull up to three state-funded medical screening centers near California’s southern border with Mexico. Federal immigration officers unload migrants predominantly from Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Peru, most of whom await asylum hearings in the United States. Once inside, coordinators…
by Mark Kreidler, Kaiser Health News About four years ago, Dr. Gene Dorio sat on the ethics committee of a Southern California hospital whose administrators insisted they could decide whether to disconnect a ventilator from an unconscious patient — even though the man’s wife and adult children wanted to continue life support. The problem, Dorio…
Senators are eying the growing shortage of health care workers in the United States as one of the few problems where there is room for bipartisan solutions, even in a deeply divided Congress gearing up for a presidential election cycle. The shortage that’s only worsened since the pandemic is a prescription for skyrocketing costs, suffering,…
SACRAMENTO — Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation on Wednesday, February 15 mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics. State Sen. María Elena Durazo’s bill would require health facilities and home health agencies to give raises…
SACRAMENTO — Driving through the industrial outskirts of Sacramento, a stretch of warehouses, wholesale suppliers, truck centers, and auto repair shops northeast of downtown, it’s hard to square California’s $18 billion investment in homeless services with the roadside misery. Tents and tarps, run-down RVs, and rusted boats repurposed as shelter line one side of the…
Time is running out for free-to-consumer COVID vaccines, at-home test kits, and even some treatments. The White House announced this month that the national public health emergency, first declared in early 2020 in response to the pandemic, is set to expire May 11. When it ends, so will many of the policies designed to combat the virus’s…
SACRAMENTO — Driving through the industrial outskirts of Sacramento, a stretch of warehouses, wholesale suppliers, truck centers, and auto repair shops northeast of downtown, it’s hard to square California’s $18 billion investment in homeless services with the roadside misery. Tents and tarps, run-down RVs, and rusted boats repurposed as shelter line one side of the…
by Jim Robbins California Healthline More than four dozen Jamaican fruit bats destined for a lab in Bozeman, Montana, are set to become part of an experiment with an ambitious goal: predicting the next global pandemic. Bats worldwide are primary vectors for virus transmission from animals to humans. Those viruses often are harmless to bats…
WHEN Margarette Nerette arrived in the United States from Haiti, she sought safety and a new start. The former human rights activist feared for her life in the political turmoil following the military coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. Leaving her two small children with her sister in Port-au-Prince, Nerette, then 29, came…
By Arthur Allen/Kaiser Health News At a meeting to simplify the nation’s covid vaccination policy, the FDA’s panel of experts could agree on only one thing: Information is woefully lacking about how often different groups of Americans need to be vaccinated. That data gap has contributed to widespread skepticism, undervaccination, and ultimately unnecessary deaths from…
by Bernard J. Wolfson and Samantha Young, Kaiser Health News California’s decision last month to cancel the results of a long-planned bidding competition among commercial health plans in its Medicaid program has some industry insiders and consumer advocates wondering whether the state can stand up to insurers and force improvements in care for millions of…
by Annie Sciacca, Kaiser Health News As the University of California’s health system renews contracts with hundreds of outside hospitals and clinics — many with religious affiliations — some of its doctors and faculty want stronger language to ensure that physicians can perform the treatments they deem appropriate, including abortions for women or hysterectomies for…
