Category: Kaiser Health News

Health Care ‘Game-Changer’? Feds Boost Care for Homeless Americans

This month, the federal government started paying for treatments delivered outside hospitals and clinics, expanding funding for “street medicine” teams that treat homeless patients. California led the way on the change, which could help sick and vulnerable patients get healthy, sober, and, in some cases, into housing.

Feds Try to Head Off Growing Problem of Overdoses Among Expectant Mothers

Homicides, suicides, and drug overdoses have driven rising rates of pregnancy-related death in the U.S. This fall, six states received federal funding for substance use treatment interventions to prevent at least some of those deaths.

Under Fire, Social Security Chief Vows ‘Top-to-Bottom’ Review of Payment Clawbacks

Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi was pressed by a House Ways and Means subcommittee to explain why so many poor, disabled, or retired people are suddenly hit with demands that can reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Suzanne Somers’ Legacy Tainted by Celebrity Medical Misinformation

The popular actress and author, who died this week, also can be remembered as a progenitor of selling dubious medical information to a trusting public.

Abortion Coverage Is Limited or Unavailable at a Quarter of Large Employers, KFF Survey Finds

A KFF survey of employer health benefits shows that 28% of large U.S. companies have limited or no access to abortion under company health insurance.

Covid Relief Payments Triggered Feds to Demand Money Back From Social Security Recipients

Some Social Security beneficiaries say the government is clawing back benefits after they received covid stimulus payments that were supposed to be exempt from asset limits

Pregnant and Addicted: Homeless Women See Hope in Street Medicine

As homelessness explodes across California, so does the number of expectant mothers on the streets. Street medicine doctors are getting paid more by Medicaid and offering some of those mothers-to-be a chance to overcome addiction and reverse chronic diseases so they can have healthy babies — and perhaps keep them.

Michigan Voters Backed Abortion Rights. Now Democrats Want to Go Further.

Michigan is one of the few remaining abortion havens in the Midwest. But getting an abortion in that state is still more difficult than it should be, providers say.

For People With Sickle Cell Disease, ERs Can Mean Life-Threatening Waits

When patients with sickle cell disease have a health crisis — crescent-shaped red blood cells blocking blood flow — their condition can quickly lead to a fatal stroke or infection. But, despite efforts to educate doctors, research shows that patients are waiting hours in ERs and are often denied pain medication.

Doctors Abandon a Diagnosis Used to Justify Police Custody Deaths. It Might Live On, Anyway.

The American College of Emergency Physicians agreed to withdraw its 2009 white paper on excited delirium, removing the only official medical pillar of support left for the theory that has played a key role in absolving police of culpability for in-custody deaths.