With Trump on the Way, Advocates Look to States To Pick Up Medical Debt Fight
Worried that President-elect Donald Trump will curtail federal efforts to take on the nation’s medical debt problem, patient and consumer advocates are looking to states to help people who can’t afford their medical bills or pay down their debts. “The election simply shifts our focus,” said Eva Stahl, who oversees public policy at Undue Medical…
Homebound Seniors Living Alone Often Slip Through Health System’s Cracks
Carolyn Dickens, 76, was sitting at her dining room table, struggling to catch her breath as her physician looked on with concern. “What’s going on with your breathing?” asked Peter Gliatto, director of Mount Sinai’s Visiting Doctors Program. “I don’t know,” she answered, so softly it was hard to hear. “Going from here to the…
Efforts To Curb ACA Enrollment Fraud Face Real-World Test
The current Affordable Care Act open enrollment season is the first big test of new federal guardrails against fraud. The rules aim to head off unauthorized ACA plan enrollments or switches by rogue agents and entities looking to make money via enrollment commissions. Such sign-ups triggered more than 274,000 consumer complaints through August this year.…
Journalists Dish on New Weight Loss Drugs, RFK Jr.’s Fluoride Claims, and Reproductive Health
KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed a proposed weight loss drug rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on CBS News’ “CBS News 24/7” on Nov. 26. Click here to watch Rovner on “CBS News 24/7” KFF Health News South Carolina correspondent Lauren Sausser discussed racial disparities in maternal health…
A Toddler Got a Nasal Swab Test but Left Before Seeing a Doctor. The Bill was $445.
Ryan Wettstein Nauman was inconsolable one evening last December. After being put down for bed, the 3-year-old from Peoria, Illinois, just kept crying and crying and crying, and nothing would calm her down. Her mother, Maggi Wettstein, remembered fearing it could be a yeast or urinary tract infection, something they had been dealing with during…
Trump Doesn’t Need Congress To Make Abortion Effectively Unavailable
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump tried mightily to reassure abortion rights supporters, vowing he would not sign into law a nationwide abortion ban even if Congress sent him one. But once he returns to the White House in January, Trump can make abortions difficult — or illegal —across the United States without Congress taking…
Your Next Hospital Stay Could Involve Fewer IV Fluid Bags. Here’s Why.
When Hurricane Helene struck in late September, it flooded the largest IV fluid factory in the United States. The Baxter International facility in western North Carolina had been producing 1.5 million IV bags a day, sent ripples through the health-care industry. IV saline and fluids with carbohydrates are used regularly in hospitals and other clinical…
KFF Health News’ ‘What the Health?’: Public Health and the Dairy Cow in the Room
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to…
Dicen que los esfuerzos contra el fraude en ACA han dado resultados. Pero hay que estar alerta
Los cambios no autorizados en los planes médicos de la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA) parecen haberse reducido en las últimas semanas: reguladores federales informaron que hay menos quejas de los consumidores. Los Centros de Servicios de Medicare y Medicaid (CMS), que supervisan ACA, atribuyen esta reducción a las medidas adoptadas…
Georgians With Disabilities Are Still Being Institutionalized, Despite Federal Oversight
ATLANTA — Lloyd Mills was tired of being stuck in a small, drab hospital room. On a rainy mid-September morning, a small TV attached to a mostly blank white wall played silently. There was nothing in the space to cheer it up — no cards, no flowers. In February, the 32-year-old with autism, cerebral palsy,…