Insight

Latest California Healthline Stories

Congress Cites KHN Investigation in Probe of National Academies

The House oversight committee is requesting conflict-of-interest disclosure forms from a National Academies committee studying organ transplants. KHN previously reported on apparent conflicts among members of a committee studying drug waste. 

California’s Reboot of Troubled Medi-Cal Puts Pressure on Health Plans

The nine commercial insurers in Medi-Cal must reapply by submitting bids for new contracts. The state hopes the process will improve care for low-income residents and tighten accountability, something critics say has been missing.

Covid-Overwhelmed Hospitals Postpone Cancer Care and Other Treatment

Patients with advanced cancer and heart disease are among those who have had to have surgeries and other treatments delayed and rescheduled as a high number of critically ill, unvaccinated covid patients strain the medical system.

Leader of California’s Muscular Obamacare Exchange to Step Down

Peter Lee helped create Covered California, which has been lauded as a national example among the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, and he fiercely opposed Republican efforts to repeal the federal health reform law.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Much Ado About Drug Prices

Democrats have hit a snag in their effort to compile a $3.5 trillion social-spending bill this fall — moderates are resisting support for Medicare drug price negotiation provisions that would pay for many of the measure’s health benefit improvements. Meanwhile, the new abortion restrictions in Texas have moved the divisive issue back to the political front burner. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interview’s KHN’s Phil Galewitz about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” installment, about two similar jaw surgeries with very different price tags.

How Fauci and the NIH Got Ahead of the FDA and CDC in Backing Boosters

With real-time data streaming in from highly specialized researchers in the U.S. and abroad, NIH scientists became convinced that boosting the covid-19 vaccine was needed to save lives, prompting the president to announce a plan with a Sept. 20 start date. Scientists at the regulatory agencies weren’t yet convinced. A meeting Friday will determine what happens next. Here’s the story from behind the scenes.