Heading into the midterm elections, high healthcare costs rank among voters’ biggest concerns. But lately, there’s a twist giving the issue new momentum on campaign agendas: a focus on fraud in government health programs. The administration of President Donald Trump has used claims of widespread wrongdoing to justify investigations, suspensions of billions of dollars in…
Experimental peptides have become darlings among influencers, chiropractors, and doctors focused on longevity, antiaging, or “body optimization,” even though the FDA hasn’t approved them for safety or effectiveness. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement have pushed to make unproven peptides more accessible — and they’ve…
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. Not-So-Great Healthcare Why doesn’t world-class medicine produce world-class health? Hayat Norimine’s reporting gets at something that has bothered me for a long time about American healthcare (Priced Out: “As Health Insurance…
By JUSTIN MCKAY When I’m brought back into the diagnostic area, one of the first things I see is a lead apron, well-worn and folded into itself, about ready to slide off the table where it was absentmindedly placed. For many people, this sight would not be startling, but I know firsthand the life-threatening dangers…
Late last month, the Trump administration announced that it had cut 760,000 people from the Affordable Care Act rolls, claiming fraud and improper enrollments and touting billions in potential taxpayer savings. Not all of those kicked off were fraudulently enrolled, KFF Health News has learned. Insurance industry sources said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid…
In March 2025, when California ran out of Medicaid funds to pay doctors and hospitals, the state borrowed $3.4 billion to keep the program afloat. It was, as a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted, nothing new. Indeed, a handful of times over the years, the state had taken out internal, short-term loans to sustain…
Aimee Carlock needed surgery in August 2025 to treat severe pain and bleeding from her uterus. But first, she needed to come up with $5,500. Texas Health Resources, one of the state’s largest nonprofit hospital systems, told her it wouldn’t schedule the procedure unless she paid up front, Carlock said. The self-employed house cleaner didn’t…
Most hospitals offer financial assistance to patients who struggle to afford their bills, often referred to as charity care. But many people are stymied by cumbersome aid applications. Others don’t even know help exists. Hospitals have the ability to proactively screen patients to see if they’re eligible for aid and, if so, automatically wipe out…
By BRIAN FENGLER Every night in the emergency department, the electronic health record hums with small demands for attention. A nudge about sepsis. A best-practice advisory. A documentation suggestion that arrives between patients and asks for one more click. Most of us treat those prompts as background noise. Almost none of us stop to ask…
Kristin Martinelli began her workday at 7:30 a.m. on a recent Monday, completing an online Medicaid recertification form for a client in a nursing home in Austin, Texas. Next, she drove to meet an 85-year-old and her daughter, who had come in from out of town. The older woman had “pretty advanced dementia” and was…