SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California state lawmakers this year are continuing their progressive tilt on health policy with dozens of proposals including a ban on a Froot Loops ingredient and free condoms for high schoolers. As states increasingly fracture along partisan lines, California Democrats are stamping their supermajority on legislation that they will consider until they adjourn at the end of August. But the cost of these proposals will be a major factor given the enormity of the state’s deficit, currently estimated at between $38 billion and $73 billion. Health Coverage Lawmakers are again ..read more

KALISPELL, Mont. — On a cold February morning at the Flathead Warming Center, Tashya Evans waited for help with her Medicaid application as others at the shelter got ready for the day in this northwestern Montana city. Evans said she lost Medicaid coverage in September because she hadn’t received paperwork after moving from Great Falls, Montana. She has had to forgo the blood pressure medication she can no longer pay for since losing coverage. She has also had to put off needed dental work. “The teeth broke off. My gums hurt. There’s some times where I’m not feeling good, I don’t want to eat ..read more

The Biden administration finalized nursing home staffing rules Monday that will require thousands of them to hire more nurses and aides — while giving them years to do so. The new rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are the most substantial changes to federal oversight of the nation’s roughly 15,000 nursing homes in more than three decades. But they are less stringent than what patient advocates said was needed to provide high-quality care. Spurred by disproportionate deaths from covid-19 in long-term care facilities, the rules aim to address perennially sparse staffing ..read more

MANTI, Utah — Garrett Clark estimates he has spent about six years in the Sanpete County Jail, a plain concrete building perched on a dusty hill just outside this small, rural town where he grew up. He blames his addiction. He started using in middle school, and by the time he was an adult he was addicted to meth and heroin. At various points, he’s done time alongside his mom, his dad, his sister, and his younger brother. “That’s all I’ve known my whole life,” said Clark, 31, in December. Clark was at the jail to pick up his sister, who had just been released. The siblings think this time will ..read more

KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani explained details of the opioid settlements and how much has so far been paid to state and local governments on KMOX’s “Total Information AM” on April 9. Click here to hear Pattani on KMOX Read more from “Payback: Tracking the Opioid Settlement Cash” KFF Health News contributor Andy Miller discussed concierge physician care on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on April 5. Click here to hear Miller on WUGA Read more in “Hospitals Cash In on a Private Equity-Backed Trend: Concierge Physician Care” by Phil Galewitz KFF Health News is a natio ..read more

Two months after a cyberattack on a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary halted payments to some doctors, medical providers say they’re still grappling with the fallout, even though UnitedHealth told shareholders on Tuesday that business is largely back to normal. “We are still desperately struggling,” said Emily Benson, a therapist in Edina, Minnesota, who runs her own practice, Beginnings & Beyond. “This was way more devastating than covid ever was.” Change Healthcare, a business unit of the Minnesota-based insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, controls a digital network so vast it processes near ..read more

SAN FRANCISCO — Chinese Hospital, located in the heart of this city’s legendary Chinatown, struggles with many of the same financial and demographic challenges that plague small independent hospitals in underserved areas across the country. Many of its patients are aging Chinese speakers with limited incomes who are reliant on Medicare and Medi-Cal, which pay less than commercial insurance and often don’t fully cover provider costs. And due to an arcane federal rule, Chinese Hospital receives a lower rate of reimbursement than many other hospitals that treat a large number of low-income patien ..read more

For the past year, police Detective Tim Lillard has spent most of his waking hours unofficially investigating his wife’s death. The question has never been exactly how Ann Picha-Lillard died on Nov. 19, 2022: She succumbed to respiratory failure after an infection put too much strain on her weakened lungs. She was 65. For Tim Lillard, the question has been why. Lillard had been in the hospital with his wife every day for a month. Nurses in the intensive care unit had told him they were short-staffed, and were constantly rushing from one patient to the next. Lillard tried to pitch in where he c ..read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has compromised on long-sought rules that would protect indoor workers from extreme heat, saying tens of thousands of prison and jail employees — and prisoners — would have to wait for relief. The deal comes a month after the administration unexpectedly rejected sweeping heat standards for workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot job sites. The rules had been years in the making, and a state worker safety board voted to adopt them March 21. But in a controversial move, the administration upended the pro ..read more

The Host Mary Agnes Carey KFF Health News @maryagnescarey Read Mary Agnes' stories. Lawmakers in Washington this week held the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare cyberattack, a breach that sent shock waves through the health care system as payments for care ground to a halt and left some providers in financial trouble. Republicans and Democrats alike zeroed in on how big health care conglomerations — like Change’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group — are leaving patients vulnerable. And nearly 1 in 4 adults who lost Medicaid coverage in the past year are now uninsured, accor ..read more