Insurance

Latest California Healthline Stories

Republicans Call Medicaid Rife With Fraudsters. This Man Sees No Choice but To Break the Rules.

By Katheryn Houghton Illustration by Oona Zenda

Congressional Republicans successfully pushed to add hurdles to qualify for Medicaid by saying they would eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. This is the story of a Montana man who explains why he said he is breaking the rules to keep his health insurance and his job.

Are 5 Million Nondisabled Medicaid Recipients Watching TV All Day? That’s Unsupported

By Loreben Tuquero, PolitiFact

CNN pundit Scott Jennings said almost 5 million nondisabled Medicaid recipients “simply choose not to work” and “spend six hours a day socializing and watching television.” But a recent analysis found only about 300,000 cited a lack of interest in working as the reason they were unemployed.

Amid PFAS Fallout, a Maine Doctor Navigates Medical Risks With Her Patients

By Marina Schauffler

A doctor doing environmental health research in rural Maine is working to establish the best practices to treat patients exposed to “forever chemicals,” potentially leading the way for practitioners across the nation.

Georgia Shows Rough Road Ahead for States as Medicaid Work Requirements Loom

By Renuka Rayasam and Sam Whitehead

President Donald Trump signed legislation that requires many Medicaid recipients to prove they’re working to qualify for health care coverage, allocating $200 million for states that expanded Medicaid to prepare systems to verify people’s eligibility. Georgia’s program, which has been expensive and difficult to administer, has had limited enrollment.

Surprise Medical Bills Were Supposed To Be a Thing of the Past. Surprise — They’re Not.

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

The No Surprises Act, which was signed in 2020 and took effect in 2022, was heralded as a landmark piece of legislation that would protect people who had health insurance from receiving surprise medical bills. And yet bills that take patients by surprise keep coming.

Insurers and Customers Brace for Double Whammy to Obamacare Premiums

By Julie Appleby

Consumers face both rising premiums and falling subsidies next year in Obamacare plans, with insurers seeking increases to cover not only rising costs but also some policy changes advanced by President Donald Trump and the GOP.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': The Senate Saves PEPFAR Funding — For Now

The Senate narrowly approved the Trump administration’s request to claw back about $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting but refused to cut funding for the international AIDS/HIV program PEPFAR. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia can ban the abortion pill mifepristone, which could allow states to block other FDA-approved drugs. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.

Even Grave Errors at Rehab Hospitals Go Unpenalized and Undisclosed

By Jordan Rau and Irena Hwang, The New York Times

For-profit hospitals provide most inpatient physical therapy but tend to have worse readmission rates to general hospitals. Medicare doesn’t tell consumers about troubling inspections.