Insight

Latest California Healthline Stories

As Workers Struggle With Pandemic’s Impact, Employers Expand Mental Health Benefits

Many job-based health plans broadened their mental health and substance use coverage to make sure workers had the support they needed this year as pandemic stress lingered, the annual KFF survey finds. Also, the proportion of employers offering health insurance to their workers remained steady, and increases for premiums and out-of-pocket health expenses were moderate.

Uninsured in South Would Win Big in Democrats’ Plan, but Hospitals Fear Funding Loss

The latest iteration of President Joe Biden’s social-spending package would close the health insurance gap for at least 2.2 million people, making a huge difference especially in the South, where political opposition has blocked Medicaid expansion.

Labs With No One to Run Them: Why Public Health Workers Are Fleeing the Field

Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.

If Congress Adds Dental Coverage to Medicare, Should All Seniors Get It?

Health equity advocates see a once-in-a-generation opportunity to provide a dental benefit to millions of older Americans as Congress considers expanding Medicare services. But complicating that push is a debate over how many of the more than 60 million Medicare recipients should receive dental coverage.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Social-Spending ‘Framework’ Pulls Back on Key Health Pledges

President Joe Biden unveiled a compromise “Build Back Better” framework shortly before taking off for key meetings in Europe, but it’s unclear whether the framework can win the votes of all Democrats in the House and Senate, and it leaves out some of the party’s health priorities, notably significant provisions to lower prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, younger children may soon be eligible for covid vaccines. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.