DON'T EVER GIVE UP
2022-11-23 Audits — Hidden Until Now — Reveal Millions in Medicare Advantage Overcharges Fred Schulte, Kaiser Health News and Holly Hacker Newly released federal audits reveal widespread overcharges and other errors in payments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors, with some plans overbilling the government more than $1,000 per patient a year […]
2022-11-22 Patient Mistrust and Poor Access Hamper Federal Efforts to Overhaul Family Planning Renuka Rayasam JACKSON, Miss. — Two years ago, after an emergency cesarean section at a Mississippi hospital, Sherika Trader was denied a tubal ligation. Trader, now 33, was told that to have her tubes tied, she had to have a […]
2022-11-22 Scientists Debate the Role of a Virus in Multiple Sclerosis by Elizabeth Preston Ryan Grant was in his 20s and serving in the military when he learned that the numbness and tingling in his hands and feet, as well as his unshakeable fatigue, were symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Like nearly a million other people […]
2022-11-21 As STDs Proliferate, Companies Rush to Market At-Home Test Kits. But Are They Reliable? Liz Szabo, Kaiser Health News Among the more remarkable legacies of the covid-19 pandemic is how quickly federal regulators, the health care industry, and consumers moved to make at-home testing a reliable tool for managing a public health […]
2022-11-20 Mistrust and Polarization Steer Rural Governments to Reject Federal Public Health Funding Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez ELKO, Nev. — When Elko County commissioners rejected a $500,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that could have helped the county create a health department or health district, Kayla Hopkins pleaded with them […]
2022-11-19 California Stockpiles Penalties From Uninsured Residents Instead of Lowering Care Costs Angela Hart SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nearly three years after California started fining residents who don’t have health insurance, the state has not distributed any of the revenue it has collected, KHN has learned — money that was intended to help Californians […]
2022-11-18 Thousands of Experts Hired to Aid Public Health Departments Are Losing Their Jobs Lauren Weber As covid-19 raged, roughly 4,000 highly skilled epidemiologists, communication specialists, and public health nurses were hired by a nonprofit tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to plug the holes at battered public health departments […]
2022-11-17 Sick Profit: Investigating Private Equity’s Stealthy Takeover of Health Care Across Cities and Specialties Fred Schulte, Kaiser Health News Two-year-old Zion Gastelum died just days after dentists performed root canals and put crowns on six baby teeth at a clinic affiliated with a private equity firm. His parents sued the Kool Smiles […]
2022-11-16 ‘Impending Intergenerational Crisis’: Americans With Disabilities Lack Long-Term Care Plans Sam Whitehead Thinking about the future makes Courtney Johnson nervous. The 25-year-old blogger and college student has autism and several chronic illnesses, and with the support of her grandparents and friends, who help her access a complex network of social services, she […]
2022-11-15 Stopping the Churn: Why Some States Want to Guarantee Medicaid Coverage From Birth to Age 6 Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News Before the covid-19 public health emergency began in 2020, millions of children churned on and off Medicaid each year — an indication that many were losing coverage because of administrative problems, […]