The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
After California passed the first law in the nation to limit the disavowed term 鈥渆xcited delirium,鈥 bills in other states are being introduced to help end use of the diagnosis. But momentum is being met with resistance from law enforcement and first responder groups, who cite free speech.
Drugmakers offer copay assistance programs to patients, but insurers are tapping into those funds, not counting the amounts toward patient deductibles. That leads to unexpected charges. But the practice is under growing scrutiny.
New federal funds aim to address an array of problems created by highway construction in minority neighborhoods. These are economic, social, and, perhaps above all, public health problems. In New Orleans鈥 Treme neighborhood, competing plans for how to deal with harm done by the Claiborne Expressway reveal the challenge of how to mitigate them meaningfully.
One of the most unfair aspects of medical insurance is this: Patients can change insurance only during end-of-year enrollment periods or at the time of 鈥渜ualifying life events.鈥 But insurers鈥 contracts with doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies can change abruptly at any time.
Health care wasn鈥檛 expected to be a major theme for this year鈥檚 elections. But as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump secured their respective party nominations this week, the future of both Medicare and the Affordable Care Act appears to be up for debate. Meanwhile, the cyberattack of the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Change Healthcare continues to do damage to the companies鈥 finances with no quick end in sight. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join 51视频 Health News鈥 Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Kelly Henning of Bloomberg Philanthropies about a new, four-part documentary series on the history of public health, 鈥淭he Invisible Shield.鈥 Plus, for 鈥渆xtra credit鈥 the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
In the first of our series 鈥淭he Injured,鈥 a Kansas family remembers Valentine鈥檚 Day as the beginning of panic attacks, life-altering trauma, and waking to nightmares of gunfire. Thrown into the spotlight by the shootings, they wonder how they will recover.
A 25-year-old state Supreme Court ruling protects abortion rights in conservative Montana. That hasn鈥檛 stopped Republicans and anti-abortion advocates from trying to institute a ban.
New Social Security Commissioner Martin O鈥橫alley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is 鈥渃ruel-hearted and mindless.鈥
Years of struggle prepared residents in Cabell County, West Virginia, to confront the latest wave of the opioid epidemic as mixtures of fentanyl and other drugs claim lives nationwide.
For-profit groups own more than 70% of U.S. nursing homes. Industry leaders and researchers wonder whether corporations and investors can succeed where not-for-profit organizations have struggled. Or, will quality of care suffer in the name of making money?
California has commissioned an exhaustive study of whether its prisons provide a constitutional level of mental health care, which it could use to try to end one of the lawsuits that have federal courts overseeing the state鈥檚 prisons. But corrections officials won鈥檛 disclose even basic details of the consultants鈥 contract, including its cost to taxpayers.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee鈥檚 new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children鈥檚 health.
A pill form of an effective drug for postpartum depression hit the market in December, but most insurers do not yet have a policy on when or whether they will pay for it. The hurdles to obtain its predecessor medication have advocates worried.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom鈥檚 signature ballot measure to address mental illness, addiction, and homelessness with a $6.4 billion bond and other reforms, is barely ahead in the ongoing ballot count. The slim margin reflects a growing unease among Californians over the governor鈥檚 homelessness initiatives.
On this episode of 鈥淎n Arm and a Leg,鈥 host Dan Weissmann breaks down the complicated and expensive world of Medicare with practical tips to pick the right plan and avoid penalties.
Price worries, bureaucratic obstacles, and 鈥淚鈥檓-over-covid-itis鈥 slow uptake of a drug that鈥檚 complicated to take but often effective.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has thrown his weight behind state Sen. Monique Lim贸n鈥檚 legislation to bar unpaid medical bills from showing up on consumer credit reports. If passed, California would join just a few other states with such protections.
