KHN

Brenda Powell had suffered a stroke and was in debilitating pain when she called the Social Security Administration last year to seek disability benefits. The former Louisiana state office worker struggled at times to write her...

What use could health care have for someone who makes things up, can’t keep a secret, doesn’t really know anything, and, when speaking, simply fills in the next word based on what’s come before? Lots, if that...

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A...

Many people searching for a therapist or psychiatrist turn to the list of in-network providers offered by their insurance plan. But often, many of the doctors on the list don’t take that insurance plan, aren’t...

For two decades, patients and physicians eagerly awaited a lower-cost version of the world’s bestselling drug, Humira, while its maker, AbbVie, fought off potential competitors by building a wall of more than 250 patents...

When 28-year-old Navy veteran Carisma Carter pulled her car up to the front of the Atlanta VA Clinic, her seat was pushed far back from the steering wheel to make room for her big belly. Carter was 8 months pregnant....

Addressing the impact of the House GOP debt-ceiling bill on veterans’ programs,“I’m dead serious that we’re not cutting veterans, and I mean it.” Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chair of the House...

Michael Vera walked into a bedroom of a residential drug treatment program in Los Angeles in March to find its occupant slumped over on his bed and struggling to breathe, a homemade straw on the floor beside him and tinfoil with...

The decades-old system Texas foster care officials use to track and monitor the health records of the nearly 20,000 children in their custody is both outdated and unreliable — so much so, advocates say, that children have been...

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988,” or the Crisis Text Line by texting “HOME” to 741741. A paramedic for...

Marijuana and other products containing THC, the plant’s main psychoactive ingredient, have grown more potent and more dangerous as legalization has made them more widely available. Although decades ago the THC content of...

MOSCOW, Idaho — Mackenzie Davidson grew up in a Mormon household and sheepishly admits she knew little about pregnancy. “This is embarrassing,” she said, sitting outside a café along a street thronged with...

If you are enrolled in Medi-Cal, as more than one-third of Californians are, make sure your county knows how to reach you, or you could lose your health coverage unnecessarily. You will likely hear and see public messages over...

MISSOULA, Mont. — Jacqueline Towarnicki got a text as she finished her day shift at a local clinic. She had a new case, a patient covered in bruises who couldn’t remember how the injuries got there. Towarnicki’s...

California’s attorney general is warning two tobacco companies that their new cigarettes appear to violate a state ban on most flavored tobacco products that was upheld by voters last year. Attorney General Rob Bonta sent...

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is stepping down at the end of June after 2½ tumultuous years leading the nation’s primary public health agency — and much of the Biden...

Rates of gun assaults on children roughly doubled during the covid-19 pandemic, according to a study that looked at gun deaths and injuries in four major cities. Black children were the most frequent victims. A wider analysis...

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A...

ATLANTA — Elizabeth Burns had just come inside from gardening in 2021 when she caught a TV news report about a rocklike material contaminating a nearby community’s soil with lead. She was stunned. Her own backyard had many...

CLAYTON, Mo. — Kaitlyn Anderson was six months pregnant when a driver killed her and a Missouri Department of Transportation colleague in 2021 while they were doing roadwork near St. Louis. Her fetus also died. Although...