KHN

Companies have increasingly offered generous fertility benefits to attract and keep top-notch workers. Now, the federal government is getting in on the act. Starting this year, federal employees can choose plans that cover...

For Cindy Westman, $30 buys a week’s worth of gas to drive to medical appointments and run errands. It’s also how much she spent on her monthly internet bill before the federal Affordable Connectivity Program stepped...

A TMJ patient in Maine had six surgeries to replace part or all of the joints of her jaw. Another woman in California, desperate for relief, used a screwdriver to lengthen her jawbone daily, turning screws that protruded from...

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has abandoned proposed protections for millions of California workers toiling in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot...

DENVER — In February, Norma Brambila’s teenage daughter wrote her a letter she now carries in her purse. It is a drawing of a rose, and a note encouraging Brambila to “keep fighting” her sickness and reminding...

Patients hurl verbal abuse at Michelle Ravera every day in the emergency room. Physical violence is less common, she said, but has become a growing threat. Ravera, an ER nurse at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, recalled an...

State and local governments are receiving billions of dollars in settlements from companies that made, sold, or distributed prescription painkillers and were accused of fueling the opioid crisis. More than a dozen companies will...

When Deanna Gomez found out she was pregnant in September 2023, she felt the timing couldn’t have been worse. The college senior at California State University-San Bernardino worked 60 hours a week at two jobs. She used...

First, her favorite doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, retired. Then her other doctor at a health center a few miles away left the practice. Now, Piedad Fred has developed a new chronic condition: distrust in the American...

How patients are seeing their doctor is changing, and that could shape access to and quality of care for decades to come. More than 100 million Americans don’t have regular access to primary care, a number that has nearly...

GRINNELL, Iowa — A for-profit company has proposed turning a boarded-up former nursing home here into a psychiatric hospital, joining a national trend toward having such hospitals owned by investors instead of by state...

From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major “normal” thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and...

Nonprofit hospitals created largely to serve the poor are adding concierge physician practices, charging patients annual membership fees of $2,000 or more for easier access to their doctors. It’s a trend that began decades...

When she was in ninth grade, Fiona Lu fell into a depression. She had trouble adjusting to her new high school in Orange County, California, and felt so isolated and exhausted that she cried every morning. Lu wanted to get help,...

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A...

Christian Espinoza, director of a Southern California drug-treatment provider, recently began employing a powerful new assistant: an artificial intelligence algorithm that can perform eye exams with pictures taken by a retinal...

One January morning in 2021, Carol Rosen took a standard treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Three gruesome weeks later, she died in excruciating pain from the very drug meant to prolong her life. Rosen, a 70-year-old...

In the small Appalachian city of Bristol, Virginia, City Council member Neal Osborne left a meeting on the morning of Jan. 3 and rushed himself to the hospital. Osborne, 36, has Type 1 diabetes. His insulin pump had...

Sara England was putting together Ghostbusters costumes for Halloween when she noticed her baby wasn’t doing well. Her 3-month-old son, Amari Vaca, had undergone open-heart surgery two months before, so she called his...