Category: Health Care Costs

A Year After Super Bowl Parade Shooting, Trauma Freeze Gives Way to Turmoil for Survivors

Survivors and witnesses of gun violence often freeze emotionally at first, as a coping mechanism. As the one-year mark since the parade shooting nears, the last installment in our series “The Injured” looks at how some survivors talk about resilience, while others are desperately trying to hang on.

Blood Transfusions at the Scene Save Lives. But Ambulances Are Rarely Equipped To Do Them.

More than 60,000 people bleed to death every year in the United States. Many of those deaths occur before the patient reaches a trauma center where blood transfusions can be given.

Officials Seek To Dismantle Appeals Board for Montanans Denied Public Assistance

The Montana health department says the Board of Public Assistance is redundant and a bureaucratic hurdle that helps few people. Current and former board representatives say the rare cases in which the panel helps people are important.

Wash, Dry, Enroll: Finding Medicaid Help at the Laundromat

State Medicaid and Affordable Care Act programs have long struggled to connect with lower-income Americans to help them access care. Now some are trying an alternative approach: meeting them at the laundromat.

Most Insurance Covers IUDs. Hers Cost More Than $14,000.

The Affordable Care Act requires most insurance plans to cover preventive care, including many forms of contraception, without cost to patients — but not if they’re “grandfathered” plans, which predate the law.

Telehealth Companies Boost Ad Spending While Taking on More Complex Medicine

Telehealth startups including Ro and Nurx are spending millions to promote themselves as easy dispensers of medicines. Some companies offer care for birth control, sexual dysfunction, and more complex conditions, including behavioral health disorders and obesity.

Trump’s Funding ‘Pause’ Throws States, Health Industry Into Chaos

A sweeping Trump administration order threw the nation’s health system into disarray Tuesday, as states and the health industry tried to make sense of what looked like a freeze on federal Medicaid funding.

An Arm and a Leg: The ‘Shkreli Awards’ — For Dysfunction and Profiteering in Health Care

The Lown Institute, a health care think tank, holds a contest every year for the most outrageous stories of greed in health care.

New California Laws Target Medical Debt, AI Care Decisions, Detention Centers

California has a few major changes coming to its health policy landscape in 2025. New laws that took effect Jan. 1 ban medical debt from credit reports, allow public health inspections of private immigration detention centers, and ban toxic chemicals in makeup.

KFF Health News’ ‘What the Health?’: New Year, New Congress, New Health Agenda

Health is unlikely to be a top priority for the new GOP-led 119th Congress and President-elect Donald Trump. But it’s likely to play a key supporting role, with an abortion bill already scheduled for debate in the Senate. Meanwhile, it’s unclear when and how the new Congress will deal with the bipartisan bills jettisoned from the previous Congress’ year-end omnibus measure — including a major deal to rein in the power of pharmacy benefit managers. In this “catch up on all the news you missed” episode, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.