Category: Health

An unproven and unregulated dental device at the center of patient lawsuits has not been evaluated by the FDA, according to a months-long joint investigation by KHN and CBS News.  More than 10,000 dental patients have been fitted with an Anterior Growth Guidance Appliance, or AGGA, according to court records.  CBS News national correspondent Anna Werner […]

BUTTE, Mont. — Jennifer Mitchell remembered getting a call nearly two years ago that her 69-year-old husband, Bill, had crashed his car and had been committed to the Montana State Hospital, the state-run psychiatric hospital for adults about 20 miles from their home in Butte. Physicians thought Bill Mitchell had dementia and could be a […]

PERRY, Iowa — Fran Ruhl’s family received a startling letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services four weeks after she died in January 2022. “Dear FAMILY OF FRANCES RUHL,” the letter began. “We have been informed of the death of the above person, and we wish to express our sincere condolences.” The letter got […]

Angela Hart and Bernard J. Wolfson 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 are more […]

A federal judge said this week that she will begin fining California potentially tens of thousands of dollars daily after more than 200 prison inmates killed themselves during eight years in which state corrections officials failed to complete court-ordered suicide prevention measures. Addressing a chronic tragedy that has plagued the state for decades, Chief U.S. […]

Where do emotions come from? This is a question that has interested scientists for centuries. Most of us would agree that when we experience an emotion, there is often a change in our body. We might be aware of our heart beating very fast when watching a scary film, or notice breathing heavily after a […]

Multiple sclerosis is characterized by an immune system gone haywire. A patient’s immune system starts treating the protective coating of the nerves – called myelin – as dangerous. The subsequent nerve damage can cause a variety of symptoms, including muscle weakness, pain and vision loss. MS currently has no cure, and doctors still don’t completely […]

Boja Kragulj, an accomplished clarinetist who once performed with orchestras in New York, Philadelphia, and Jacksonville, Florida, has already lost four teeth. And she expects to lose at least a dozen more. Five years ago, seeking to correct her bite and improve her breathing, Kragulj tried a dental device that she was told would put […]

Rachana Pradhan During the first two years of the covid-19 pandemic, while the federal government was trying to prevent people on Medicaid from losing health coverage, Idaho dropped nearly 10,000 people from the safety-net program. Federal law generally banned states from dropping people, and federal officials said Idaho acted improperly. Idaho officials, however, said they […]

Most lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — have declared the marquee safety-net programs of Medicare and Social Security off-limits for cuts as a divided Washington heads for a showdown over the national debt and government spending. Health programs for lower-income Americans, though, have gotten no such bipartisan assurances. More than 20 million people gained […]