Category: Health

Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News The federal covid-19 pandemic protections that have largely prohibited states from dropping anyone from Medicaid since 2020 helped millions of low-income Americans retain health insurance coverage — even if they no longer qualified — and brought the U.S. uninsured rate to a record low. It also led to a windfall […]

Eli Lilly & Co.’s announcement that it is slashing prices for its major insulin products could make life easier for some diabetes patients while easing pressure on Big Pharma. It also casts light on the profiteering methods of the drug industry’s price mediators — the pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — at a time when […]

Jason Beaubien, NPR and Sam Whitehead Jimmy Carter took great pride in pointing out that the United States didn’t start any new wars during his term as president. But after he left office, he launched a war against “neglected” diseases — diseases in far-off lands that most Americans will never suffer from and may not […]

In California, a Democrat and a Republican figured out how to pass the country’s toughest online privacy law protecting kids. If their experience is any indication, though, federal legislators can expect fierce pushback from Big Tech if they heed President Joe Biden’s call for similar action on a national scale. The law, modeled after legislation […]

Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News AMARILLO, Texas — On the vast Texas Panhandle, raked by wind and relentless sun, women might drive for hours to reach Haven Health, a clinic in Amarillo. One of more than 3,200 federal family-planning clinics nationwide, Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers, providing contraception, testing for pregnancy and sexually […]

When Matthew Boyd was released from a Georgia state prison in December 2020, officials sent him home without medicines he uses to manage chronic heart and lung conditions and high blood pressure, he said. Less than a month later, he spent eight days in an intensive care unit, the first of more than 40 hospital […]

March 7, 2023 Leigh Fava wound up in the emergency room after injuring her thumb at her New Orleans home. She said she received a tetanus shot and a badly wrapped bandage — and an unexpectedly high bill. Her experiences trying to dispute the hospital’s charges left her feeling ignored, she said. In this installment […]

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 new federal rules that among other things […]

Sam Chavarría said her doctor was clear about the birth defects her medication could cause if she became pregnant but agreed to keep her on it as long as she had an IUD. As she was waiting to get her contraceptive intrauterine device replaced at her local clinic, however, the billing nurse told her that […]

Less than two years after opening a state-of-the-art $26 million hospital in Leadville, Colorado, St. Vincent Health nearly ran out of money. Hospital officials said in early December that without a cash infusion they would be unable to pay their bills or meet payroll by the end of the week. The eight-bed rural hospital had […]