Cost and Quality

Latest California Healthline Stories

Shortage Of Insurance Fraud Cops Sparks Campaign Debate

About a quarter of fraud investigator positions at the state Department of Insurance are open, and Steve Poizner has made the vacancies a focus of his campaign for insurance commissioner. His opponent, Ricardo Lara, says chasing criminals isn’t the only solution to rising health care costs.

Financial Ties That Bind: Studies Often Fall Short On Conflict-Of-Interest Disclosures

A new study in JAMA Surgery finds that a large sample of published medical research failed to disclose details on the financial relationships between medical device makers and physicians. Changes in the disclosure process could close this loop.

Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ Coming Soon: ‘Long-Term Short-Term’ Plans

In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner talk about the latest Trump administration efforts to address high drug prices, what’s next for short-term health insurance plans and insider trading charges against a New York GOP congressman.

Lax Oversight Leaves Surgery Center Regulators And Patients In The Dark

A Kaiser Health News and USA Today Network investigation finds that a hodgepodge of state rules governing outpatient centers allow some deaths and serious injuries to go unexamined. And no rule stops a doctor exiled by a hospital for misconduct from opening a surgery center down the street.