New moms all over social media are breaking down their incredibly expensive hospital bills after giving birth. So why is giving birth so pricey in the U.S.? And given the Trump administration’s anti-abortion, pro-natalist policies, is anything on the table to make having a child more affordable? KFF Health News video producer Hannah Norman spoke…
FDA leaders under President Donald Trump are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny. The agency “would like to get away” from assembling panels of experts to examine and vote on individual drugs, because “I don’t…
ST. LOUIS — Lying on top of an operating room table with his chest exposed, Larry Black Jr. was moments away from having his organs harvested when a doctor ran breathlessly into the room. “Get him off the table,” the doctor recalled telling the surgical team at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital as the…
By KIM BELLARD I’m always on the lookout for advances in healthcare that seem more like 22st century medicine than what we still experience in 2025. Way too much of it seems less advanced than we should be expecting in a world of AI, genetic engineering, nanobots, and the like. I often think of the…
A paper in Value in Health by Grueger, Martin and Sullivan (2025) provides some lessons. Together with widespread digitalization of drug compendia (price lists), IRP led to a rapid convergence of list prices across Europe. Although prices often spread ±50% from the average price for drugs first launched in the EU in 1997, this narrowed…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social 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 noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A…
Government documents viewed by KFF Health News show a drop in patients receiving care this year at the National Institutes of Health’s renowned research hospital, a 200-bed facility at NIH headquarters in Maryland. We previously reported a decrease in the number of patients being treated at the NIH Clinical Center from February through April. Since then,…
HELENA, Mont. — In 2023, a group of 16 young Montanans won a much-heralded climate change case that said the state had deprived them of a “clean and healthful environment,” a right enshrined in Montana’s constitution. Their victory in Held v. Montana, later upheld by the state Supreme Court, resounded across the country, showing that…
Critics of affirmative action have launched a long-shot appeal aimed at stopping California from requiring training on unconscious bias in every continuing medical education class. A July ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s right to mandate that every course doctors take to remain licensed must address…
By AMI PAREKH A little-noticed telehealth safe harbor provision tucked inside the One Big Beautiful Bill was a significant milestone in virtual care. Though it specifically addresses pre-deductible telehealth services in high-deductible health plans, the legislation has far wider implications for both care delivery and insurance design, especially in the commercial insurance market. In fact…