As politicians bash privately run hospitals for their aggressive debt collection tactics, consumer advocates say one North Carolina family’s six-figure medical bill is an example of how state attorneys general and state-operated hospitals also can harm patients financially.
Efforts to improve addiction care in jails and prisons are underway across the country. But a rural Alabama county with one of the nation’s highest overdose rates shows how change is slow, while law enforcement officials continue to treat addiction as a crime rather than a medical condition.
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval is viewed as groundbreaking, but many details still must be figured out.
To defeat smallpox in South Asia, public health workers had to navigate the region’s layered cultural ideas about the virus. They also dreamed big. In Episode 1, host Céline Gounder wonders how the U.S. might tap into similar “moral imagination” to prepare for the next public health crisis.
Many people working in global health thought eradicating smallpox was impossible. They were wrong. Season 2 of the Epidemic podcast, “Eradicating Smallpox,” is a journey to South Asia during the last days of variola major smallpox. Explore…
KFF Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Researchers have found that while obesity at any age risks harming health, a few extra pounds in later life isn’t cause for concern.
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s veto disappointed and bewildered those seeking to address low-income residents’ long wait for assisted living or in-home care.
Even as the covid-19 pandemic wanes, litigation — whether about vaccines, masks, or a range of other public health policies made during the pandemic — isn’t about to end.
It took more than two years, but the Biden administration has finally kept a promise made by then-candidate Joe Biden to roll back the Trump administration’s expansion of short-term, limited-duration health plans. The plans have been controversial because, while they offer lower premiums than more comprehensive health plans, they offer far fewer benefits and are […]
