From KFF News Network – Their latest podcast, ‘An Arm And A Leg’, This week, Covering the American health care system means we tell some scary stories. This episode of “An Arm and a Leg” sounds like a real horror movie. It uses one of Hollywood’s favorite tropes: machines taking over.
From KFF Health News Network – Their latest podcast, What the Health, Lawmakers in Washington recently held the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare cyberattack, a breach that sent shock waves through the health care system as payments for care ground to a halt and left some providers in financial trouble.
By Sarah Jane Tribble – More than 23 million low-income households — urban, suburban, rural, and tribal — are enrolled in the federal discount program Congress created in 2021 to bridge the nation’s digital connectivity gap. The program has provided $30 monthly subsidies for internet bills or $75 discounts in tribal and high-cost areas.
From KFF News Network – Their latest podcast, ‘An Arm And A Leg’, This week, Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture insulin made headlines last year when they voluntarily agreed to provide discount cards that lower the monthly cost of insulin for many people to $35.
By Angela Hart – 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.
From KFF Health News Network – Their latest podcast, What the Health, The Supreme Court recently took up a case brought by two herring fishing companies that could shake up the way the entire executive branch administers laws passed by Congress. At stake is something called “Chevron deference,” from the 1984 case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
By Sarah Jane Tribble – Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has grown substantially in the past few decades, enticing more than half of all eligible people, primarily those 65 or older, with low premium costs and perks like dental and vision insurance. And as the private plans’ share of the Medicare patient pie has ballooned…
By Sarah Jane Tribble – There are many reasons labor and delivery units close, including high operating costs, declining populations, low Medicaid reimbursement rates, and staffing shortages. Family medicine physicians still provide the majority of labor and delivery care in rural America, but few new doctors…
From KFF Health News – Their latest podcast, What the Health, Even without covid dominating the headlines, 2023 was a busy year for health policy. The ever-rising cost of health care remained an issue plaguing patients and policymakers alike, while millions of Americans lost insurance coverage as states redetermined eligibility for their Medicaid programs in the wake of the public health emergency.
By Samantha Liss – Jasen Gundersen never considered a career in business when he entered medical school nearly three decades ago to become a rural primary care doctor. But, today, he isn’t working in rural America and he doesn’t do primary care. In fact, he no longer practices medicine at all.
From KFF News Network – Their latest podcast, ‘An Arm And A Leg’, This week, In 2019, emergency medicine physician and historian Luke Messac was working as a medical resident. He had heard about hospitals suing their own patients over unpaid medical bills, so he decided to investigate whether the hospitals where he worked were doing the same.
By Céline Gounder – Rahima Banu, a toddler in rural Bangladesh, was the last person in the world known to contract variola major, the deadly form of smallpox, through natural infection. In October 1975, after World Health Organization epidemiologists learned of her infection, health workers vaccinated those around her, putting an end to variola major transmission around the world.