DON'T EVER GIVE UP
2023-11-21 Extra Fees Drive Assisted Living Profits Jordan Rau, KFF Health News Assisted living centers have become an appealing retirement option for hundreds of thousands of boomers who can no longer live independently, promising a cheerful alternative to the institutional feel of a nursing home. But their cost is so crushingly high that […]
2023-11-20 Beyond Insulin: Medi-Cal Expands Patient Access to Diabetes Supplies Angela Hart LOS ANGELES — June Voros sprang from her couch as a high-pitched beep warned her that she needed a quick dose of sugar. Her blood sugar was plummeting, and the beep came from a continuous glucose monitor attached to her abdomen. […]
2023-11-19 Most States Ban Shackling Pregnant Women in Custody, Yet Many Report Being Restrained Renuka Rayasam Ashley Denney was about seven months pregnant in 2022 when police handcuffed her during an arrest in Carroll County, Georgia. Officers shackled her even though the state bans the use of restraints on pregnant women in custody […]
2023-11-18 Compensation Is Key to Fixing Primary Care Shortage Michelle Andrews Money talks. The United States faces a serious shortage of primary care physicians for many reasons, but one, in particular, is inescapable: compensation. Substantial disparities between what primary care physicians earn relative to specialists like orthopedists and cardiologists can weigh into medical […]
2023-11-17 It’s Getting Harder to Find Long-Term Residential Behavioral Health Treatment for Kids Aaron Bolton, MTPR HELENA, Mont. — Connie MacDonald works for the State Department at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It’s a dream job, and she loved living abroad with her two sons. But earlier this year, MacDonald said, […]
2023-11-16 The Unusual Way a Catholic Health System Is Wielding an Abortion Protest Law Judy Lin A Catholic hospital system is suing several California patients and their advocates because the patients allegedly refused to be discharged. The suits invoke a novel legal approach: accusing them of trespassing under a California law intended to […]
2023-11-15 Facing Financial Ruin as Costs Soar for Elder Care Reed Abelson, The New York Times and Jordan Rau, KFF Health News Margaret Newcomb, 69, a retired French teacher, is desperately trying to protect her retirement savings by caring for her 82-year-old husband, who has severe dementia, at home in Seattle. She used […]
2023-11-14 Why It’s So Tough to Reduce Unnecessary Medical Care Markian Hawryluk The U.S. spends huge amounts of money on health care that does little or nothing to help patients, and may even harm them. In Colorado, a new analysis shows that the number of tests and treatments conducted for which the risks […]
2023-11-13 Who Will Care for Older Adults? We’ve Plenty of Know-How but Too Few Specialists Judith Graham Thirty-five years ago, Jerry Gurwitz was among the first physicians in the United States to be credentialed as a geriatrician — a doctor who specializes in the care of older adults. “I understood the demographic imperative […]
2023-11-12 What I Learned From the World’s Last Smallpox Patient Céline Gounder Rahima Banu, a toddler in rural Bangladesh, was the last person in the world known to contract variola major, the deadly form of smallpox, through natural infection. In October 1975, after World Health Organization epidemiologists learned of her infection, health workers […]