Daily Edition for Friday, March 15, 2024
Measles, fentanyl, long covid, homelessness, teen pregnancy, insurance networks, PBM reforms, and more are in the news.
A New Orleans Neighborhood Confronts the Racist Legacy of a Toxic Stretch of Highway
By Drew Hawkins, Gulf States Newsroom
New federal funds aim to address an array of problems created by highway construction in minority neighborhoods. These are economic, social, and, perhaps above all, public health problems. In New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood, competing plans for how to deal with harm done by the Claiborne Expressway reveal the challenge of how to mitigate them meaningfully.
How Your In-Network Health Coverage Can Vanish Before You Know It
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
One of the most unfair aspects of medical insurance is this: Patients can change insurance only during end-of-year enrollment periods or at the time of “qualifying life events.” But insurers’ contracts with doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies can change abruptly at any time.
When Copay Assistance Backfires on Patients
By Julie Appleby
Drugmakers offer copay assistance programs to patients, but insurers are tapping into those funds, not counting the amounts toward patient deductibles. That leads to unexpected charges. But the practice is under growing scrutiny.
KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Maybe It’s a Health Care Election After All
Health care wasn’t expected to be a major theme for this year’s elections. But as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump secured their respective party nominations this week, the future of both Medicare and the Affordable Care Act appears to be up for debate. Meanwhile, the cyberattack of the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Change Healthcare continues to do damage to the companies’ finances with no quick end in sight. Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Kelly Henning of Bloomberg Philanthropies about a new, four-part documentary series on the history of public health, “The Invisible Shield.” Plus, for “extra credit” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
Daily Edition for Thursday, March 14, 2024
Illegal drug use, mental health, cannabis, measles, covid vaccine, abortion access, cybersecurity, TikTok, and more are in the news.
They Were Injured at the Super Bowl Parade. A Month Later, They Feel Forgotten.
By Bram Sable-Smith and Peggy Lowe, KCUR
A Kansas family remembers Valentine’s Day as the beginning of panic attacks, life-altering trauma, and waking to nightmares of gunfire.
Exclusive: Social Security Chief Vows to Fix ‘Cruel-Hearted’ Overpayment Clawbacks
By Fred Clasen-Kelly
New Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is “cruel-hearted and mindless.”
Daily Edition for Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Opponents Concede That Prop. 1 Likely Will Pass: The mental health bond measure hung on to its narrow lead Tuesday, prompting leaders of the opposition movement to concede likely defeat. “It is almost certain to pass,” said Californians Against Proposition 1. Read more from LA Daily News.
Concerns Grow Over Quality of Care as Investor Groups Buy Not-for-Profit Nursing Homes
By Harris Meyer
For-profit groups own more than 70% of U.S. nursing homes. Industry leaders and researchers wonder whether corporations and investors can succeed where not-for-profit organizations have struggled. Or, will quality of care suffer in the name of making money?
