The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
301 - 320 of 1,289 Results
Inflation hasn鈥檛 hit Americans like this in decades. And families living with chronic diseases have little choice but to pay more for the medicine, supplies, and food they need to stay healthy.
In pursuit of unpaid bills, nursing homes across Rochester, New York, have been suing relatives and friends of their residents. This CBS News report, done in partnership with a KHN-NPR investigation, takes a look at the practice and tells the stories of some of the people affected.
Under the Medicare drug negotiations provisions in the reconciliation bill, the federal government would see its outlays reduced by about $300 billion. That reduction wouldn鈥檛 result from cuts in benefits. Instead, Medicare would be empowered to leverage its market power to pay lower prices for certain drugs.
People whose brains have been injured by concussions, traumatic accidents, strokes, or neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson鈥檚 disease can benefit from targeted therapy. Experts also employ therapies for long-covid patients with memory and language problems.
Private equity firms are seeing opportunities for profit in hospice care, once the domain of nonprofit organizations. The investment companies are transforming the industry 鈥 and might be jeopardizing patient care 鈥 in the process.
Debt lawsuits 鈥 long a byproduct of America鈥檚 medical debt crisis 鈥 can ensnare not only patients but also those who help sick and older people be admitted to nursing homes, a KHN-NPR investigation finds.
The Elder Index, developed by researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, shows that nearly 5 million older women living alone, 2 million older men living alone, and more than 2 million older couples have incomes that make them economically insecure.
The advocacy group American Commitment said empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices would raid it of billions of dollars. Drug pricing experts say that that鈥檚 not the case and that such policies would instead reduce costs for the Medicare program and seniors.
In addition to allowing federal officials to negotiate the price that Medicare pays for some drugs, the bill would cap annual out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000. But before Democrats can pass the bill under special rules that prevent Republicans from staging a filibuster, they must get approval from the Senate parliamentarian.
About half of adults 65 and older have above-normal blood sugar levels that put them in the prediabetes category. Although that is a signal to improve your eating habits and get more exercise, researchers say only a small percentage of the group will develop diabetes.
Sherrie Foy had surgeries and medical complications that produced about $850,000 in bills. The Foys ended up declaring bankruptcy. 鈥淭hey took everything we had.鈥
Noble Health swept into two small Missouri towns promising to save their hospitals. Instead, workers and vendors say it stopped paying bills and government inspectors found it put patients at risk. Within two years 鈥 after taking millions in federal covid relief and big administrative fees 鈥 it locked the doors.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here鈥檚 a collection of their appearances.
The Biden administration is considering whether Medicaid, which pays the bills for 62% of nursing home residents, should require that most of that funding be used to provide care, rather than for maintenance, capital improvements, or profits.
With its latest venture into primary care clinics, is America鈥檚 leading organization for seniors selling its trusted seal of approval?
Stemming gun violence is back on the legislative agenda following three mass shootings in less than a month, but it鈥檚 hard to predict success when so many previous efforts have failed. Meanwhile, lawmakers must soon decide if they will extend current premium subsidies for those buying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and the Biden administration acts, belatedly, on Medicare premiums. Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Rachel Cohrs of Stat News join KHN鈥檚 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KHN鈥檚 Michelle Andrews, who reported and wrote the latest KHN-NPR 鈥淏ill of the Month鈥 episode about a too-common problem: denial of no-cost preventive care for a colonoscopy under the Affordable Care Act.
Colorado lawmakers approved a measure that will make it easier for people to fix their power wheelchairs when they wear out or break down, but arcane regulations and manufacturers create high hurdles for nationwide reform.
Preventive care, like screening colonoscopies, is supposed to be free of charge to patients under the Affordable Care Act. But some hospitals haven鈥檛 gotten the memo.
Although identifying long covid in older adults can be tricky, experts say there are good strategies for getting medical advice and fighting the impact of the virus.
An aging population in need of regular cancer screenings has driven private equity companies, seeking profits, to invest in many gastroenterology practices and set up aggressive billing practices. Steep prices on routine tests are one consequence for patients.
漏 2026 KFF