The Host Emmarie Huetteman KFF Health News @emmarieDC Emmarie Huetteman, senior editor, oversees a team of Washington reporters, as well as “Bill of the Month” and KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” She previously spent more than a decade reporting on the federal government, most recently covering surprise medical bills, drug pricing reform, and other health policy…
Last month, Planned Parenthood Great Plains opened its newest clinic in Pittsburg, Kan., a city of about 21,000 people mere minutes from the borders of both Missouri and Oklahoma. It’s the second new clinic the regional affiliate has opened in Kansas in a little over two years, to accommodate the growing number of patients coming…
The proponents of Proposition 35, a November ballot initiative that would create a dedicated stream of funding to provide health care for California’s low-income residents, have assembled an impressive coalition: doctors, hospitals, community clinics, dentists, ambulance companies, several county governments, numerous advocacy groups, big business, and both major political parties. The Yes on Prop 35…
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Like most medical offices, the small suite of exam rooms at the PhiferCares Clinic fills daily with patients seeking help with bumps and bruises, sore throats, and stuffy noses. But there’s an important difference about this clinic in central Alabama: No one gets a bill, including for prescriptions. That’s because the clinic…
Soon after a series of state laws left a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri, unable to provide abortions in 2018, it shipped some of its equipment to states where abortion remained accessible. Recovery chairs, surgical equipment, and lighting from the Missouri clinic — all expensive and perfectly good — could still be useful to…
Central Oregon Pathology Consultants has been in business for nearly 60 years, offering molecular testing and other diagnostic services east of the Cascade Range. Beginning last winter, it operated for months without being paid, surviving on cash on hand, practice manager Julie Tracewell said. The practice is caught up in the aftermath of one of…
While opioid overdoses have been rising for decades, trends in most recent times provide us a glimmer of hope. NPR reports: For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.“This is exciting,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On…
When the Agriculture Department posted a recall of chicken nuggets that might be contaminated, it directed consumers to return them or throw the stuff away. When the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that poorly designed baby loungers could suffocate babies, it warned consumers to immediately stop using them. But when it comes to medical devices,…
Ballad Health, an Appalachian company with the nation’s largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly, may soon be required to improve its quality of care or face the possibility of being broken up. Government documents obtained by KFF Health News reveal that Tennessee officials, in closed-door negotiations, are attempting to hold the monopoly more accountable after years of…
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom will soon decide whether the most populous U.S. state will join 25 others in regulating the middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, whom many policymakers blame for the soaring cost of prescription drugs. PBMs have been under fire for years for alleged profiteering and anticompetitive conduct,…