By STEVEN ZECOLA Congress will need to amend its faltering Parkinson’s disease legislation if it hopes to achieve meaningful results. Why Change Is Necessary For more than 50 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has pursued Parkinson’s disease (PD) research with limited success. Nearly $5 billion has been spent, yet no approved treatment exists…
MISSOULA, Mont. — Tywon Pugh has seizures that make it hard to find and keep a job. “They called me a ‘liability to the job site,’” Pugh said, recalling the words of his manager when a seizure cost him his last job at a fast-food restaurant in this western Montana city. When the 46-year-old lost…
In this “How Would You Fix It?” interview, Julie Rovner, KFF Health News’ chief Washington correspondent and host of the What the Health? podcast, sat down with Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, to discuss his proposal to grant all kids access to health coverage. Kim, who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor…
By DEEKSHA HEGDE How to spot a fundamental business model shift from a mile away, long before the PR calls it a product launch or market expansion. In April 2026, Progyny, a fertility and family building benefits administrator, announced Progyny Select, a supplemental health plan for small and mid-size employers (100-1,000 employees). “Pooled-risk” got me…
BALTIMORE — In March in a McDonald’s parking lot off a busy street, mental health clinician Michala Williams met a 38-year-old woman in a car. “So, you called the police for help?” Williams asked the woman, who was sobbing uncontrollably and said she sometimes thinks about harming herself. She told Williams she has children ranging…
AMHERST, Mass. — For the last 30 years, whenever pediatrician John Snyder wanted to find the most up-to-date research on treating young patients, he would turn to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If he wanted to learn more about an outbreak of measles or hantavirus, he would pore over the weekly CDC report…
By MIKE MAGEE Two decades ago, I was heavily into health visioning. I learned quickly that it was relatively easy to predict what would happen, but much more difficult to accurately peg when it would happen. At the time, I promoted “7 Visions.” Health is Political. Home-Centered Health Care Reconnecting The Family Techmanity Lifespan Planning…
By GEORGE BEAUREGARD Back in the late 90s to early 2000s, I had a robust (independent) internal medicine practice. These were the days before electronic medical records and hospitalists became ingrained into the healthcare delivery landscape. I’ll admit that—despite how much I loved my Palm Pilot—initially, I was ambivalent about the value-add of both. For…
Vanessa Barahona received a call this past spring from Angelica at Kern Family Health Care in Bakersfield, California, telling her it was time to renew her coverage under Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid. Angelica helped Barahona, 41, schedule an appointment to complete her paperwork in person at Kern Family’s offices before she submitted it…
More than 900 people in Washtenaw County, Michigan, have been sickened with cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Linda Kim, a public health nurse, has called more than 100 of them. Almost everyone has said the same thing: It’s excruciating, and one of the worst illnesses they’ve experienced. But on a Wednesday in July, she called one man…