KHN

More than 9 in 10 general acute-care hospitals have been penalized at least once in the past decade.

Fueled by consumer frustration with high premiums and deductibles, two new offerings promise a means for consumers to take control of their health care costs. But experts say they pose risks.

A former Montana health department leader said Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration killed a public service campaign planned for last summer that promoted covid vaccines for teens. Health organizations want to fill the void with information on vaccines for children 5 and up.

Some front-line workers who die of covid-19 have been considered eligible for accidental death benefits because it is presumed their infection was contracted on the job. But some employers now suggest that if the workers didn’t follow established safety protocols, such as getting vaccinated, those benefits may be denied.

The latest iteration of President Joe Biden’s social-spending package would close the health insurance gap for at least 2.2 million people, making a huge difference especially in the South, where political opposition has blocked Medicaid expansion.

Reports of waning effectiveness and mixed messages about booster shots fuel the politicization of vaccination.

Laurie Todd calls herself the “Insurance Warrior” and is sharing her strategies for getting health insurance companies to bend to her will.

Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.

Health equity advocates see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide a dental benefit to millions of older Americans as Congress considers expanding Medicare services. But complicating that push is a debate over how many of the more than 60 million Medicare recipients should receive dental coverage.

The arguments before the justices did not deal directly with the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks. Instead, they centered on the unique mechanism in the law that gives state officials no role in enforcing the ban.

The law doesn’t take effect until July, but its passage should force insurers to expand their rosters of therapists. Here’s how you can challenge your health plan’s mental health services until then.

A federal allocation plan meant to ensure equitable distribution of powerful monoclonal antibody treatments for high-risk patients fails to prioritize nursing home residents, a population that remains particularly vulnerable even after vaccination.

California offers a lens on the challenges officials face in persuading parents to embrace covid shots for young children. While the state has a strong showing in overall vaccination rates, just 59% of kids 12 to 17 — eligible for a shot since May — are fully vaccinated.

A huge thank you to our readers who participated in our third annual KHN Halloween Haiku Contest. Based on a review by our expert panel of judges, we unmask the winner and serve a sampling of finalists.

Certain patients who couldn’t get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.

President Joe Biden unveiled a compromise “Build Back Better” framework shortly before taking off for key meetings in Europe, but it’s unclear whether the framework can win the votes of all Democrats in the House and Senate, and it leaves out some of the party’s health priorities, notably significant provisions to lower prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, younger children may soon be eligible for covid vaccines. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.

The federal government’s hospital penalty program finishes its first decade by lowering payments to nearly half the nation’s hospitals for readmitting too many Medicare patients within a month. Penalties, though often small, are credited with helping reduce the number of patients returning for another Medicare stay within 30 days.

The Supreme Court justices, who accepted the case only 10 days before the arguments will be made, may skirt the issue of abortion and concentrate instead on the legality of the law’s unusual tack to let private citizens enforce it.

With an eye to shutting down Medicare drug price negotiations, drug companies and their lobbying groups gave roughly $1.6 million in the first six months of 2021, with Democrats edging closer than they have in a decade to Republicans’ total haul.

The ads for supplemental Medicare Advantage plans describe vision and dental benefits, even grocery discounts and food deliveries. But look at the fine print.