Author: Avisoscuba
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” When Pooja Mehta’s younger brother, Raj, died by suicide at 19 in March 2020, she felt “blindsided.” Raj’s last text message was to his college lab partner about how to divide homework questions. “You don’t say you’re going to take questions 1 through 15 if you’re planning to be dead one hour later,” said Mehta, 29, a mental health and suicide prevention advocate in Arlington, Virginia. She had been trained in Mental Health First Aid…
SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Douglass shoved his clothes and belongings into plastic trash bags as five police officers surrounded his encampment — a drab gray tent overflowing along a bustling sidewalk in the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, where homeless people lie sprawled on public sidewalks, sometimes in drug overdoses. Officers gave him a choice: Go to a shelter or get arrested and cited for sleeping outside. Douglass was trying to figure out what to do as he dismantled his tent. If he accepted temporary shelter, he’d risk missing an important appointment with his street medicine case manager, who was due to…
KFF Health News contributor Phillip Reese discussed the rapid rise of breast cancer rates among Asian American and Pacific Islander women on KCBS Radio on Sept. 7. Click to hear Reese on KCBS. Read Reese’s “Breast Cancer Rises Among Asian American and Pacific Islander Women.” KFF Health News contributor Andy Miller discussed medical response to mass shootings on WUGA’s “The Georgia Health Report” on Sept. 6. Click here to hear Miller on “The Georgia Health Report.” Read “‘What Happens Three Months From Now?’ Mental Health After Georgia High School Shooting” by Sam Whitehead, Renuka Rayasam, and Miller. KFF Health News is…
SIKESTON, Mo. — I wasn’t sure if visiting a cotton field was a good idea. Almost everyone in my family was antsy when we pulled up to the sea of white. The cotton was beautiful but soggy. An autumn rain had drenched the dirt before we arrived, our shoes sinking into the ground with each step. I felt like a stranger to the soil. My daughter, Lily, then 5, happily touched a cotton boil for the first time. She said it looked like mashed potatoes. My dad posed for a few photos while I tried to take it all in.…
ATLANTA — On a recent summer evening, Raymia Taylor wandered into a recreation center in a historical downtown neighborhood, the only enrollee to attend a nearly two-hour event for people who have signed up for Georgia’s experimental Medicaid expansion. The state launched the program in July 2023, requiring participants to document that they’re working, studying, or doing other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month in exchange for health coverage. At the event, booths were set up to help people join the Marines or pursue a GED diploma. Taylor, 20, already met the program’s requirements — she studies nursing and…
WINDER, Ga. — About an hour after gunfire erupted at Apalachee High School, ambulances started arriving at nearby Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow with two students and two adults suffering from panic attacks and extreme anxiety, not bullet wounds. A fifth patient with similar symptoms later arrived at another local facility, according to a health system spokesperson. The day after the Sept. 4 school shooting that killed two students and two teachers, some 80 families showed up in a county office to receive counseling from volunteer therapists who converged from across the Atlanta metro area, according to one medical provider.…
The Host As expected, the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris offered few new details of their positions on abortion, the Affordable Care Act, and other critical health issues. But it did underscore for voters dramatic differences between the two candidates. Meanwhile, the Biden administration issued rules attempting to better enforce mental health parity — the federal government’s requirement that services for mental health care and substance use disorders be covered by insurance to the same extent as other medical services. This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Rachel Cohrs Zhang…
Forget repeal and replace. Critics of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, have a new target: key parts of the law that they say are too costly and provide incentive for fraud. Topping that list are the ACA’s enhanced subsidies, put in place during the coronavirus pandemic as part of economic recovery legislation and set to expire next year unless Congress acts. The subsidies are credited with enabling more low-income people to qualify for zero-premium coverage and helping boost enrollment to record levels. If the subsidies expire, millions of Americans will probably see premiums go up, according to a report from KFF.…
When Jessica Staten’s kidney stones wouldn’t pass, she said, her doctor suggested a procedure to “blow ’em up.” She went to have it done last November at St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, Washington, one of nine hospitals that the Catholic health system PeaceHealth operates in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. “I was probably there a total of 3½ hours, and everything went well,” said Staten, who works as an accountant and has health insurance. What came next shocked her: PeaceHealth sent a bill for $5,313.63 and, she said, told her she didn’t qualify for help to lower the cost.…
Missoula is one of Montana’s largest cities but is surrounded by rural mountain communities where cattle ranching is king. Despite the latitude and altitude, in recent years this region has experienced punishing summer heat waves. It has been difficult for residents to adapt to the warming climate and new seasonal swings. Many don’t have air conditioning and are unprepared for the new pattern of daytime temperatures hovering in the 90s — for days or even weeks on end. Dehydration, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and abnormalities in heart rate and blood pressure are among the many health complications that can develop from…
KFF Health News and PolitiFact staffs Cuando la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris cruzó el escenario del debate el martes 10 por la noche para darle la mano al ex presidente Donald Trump, fue la primera vez que los dos se conocían en persona. Fue un breve y raro momento de cordialidad en un enfrentamiento marcado por declaraciones falsas y, a veces, bizarras del ex presidente. La cadena ABC organizó el debate, moderado por David Muir y Linsey Davis, quienes ocasionalmente revisaron las afirmaciones de Trump. A la mañana siguiente, en el programa “Fox & Friends” de Fox News, Trump dijo que…
KFF Health News and PolitiFact staffs When Vice President Kamala Harris walked across the debate stage Tuesday night to shake the hand of former President Donald Trump, it was the first time the two had met in person. But that was the rare collegial moment in a face-off otherwise marked by false and sometimes bizarre statements by the former president. The debate was hosted by ABC with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who occasionally fact-checked Trump. He complained on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning that it was a “three-to-one” contest. The two presidential candidates…
LOS ANGELES — For nearly a decade, John Baackes has led L.A. Care Health Plan, a publicly run insurer primarily serving low-income Los Angeles County residents on Medi-Cal. It is by far the largest Medi-Cal plan in the state. Baackes, 78, who will retire after the end of the year, helped transform L.A. Care into a major market player following its expansion under the Affordable Care Act. He implemented a new administrative structure and promoted a new internal culture. The insurer generated $11.3 billion in revenue last year, with membership close to 2.6 million people — nearly 900,000 more than…
PITTSBURGH — A false alarm that a gunman was roaming one Catholic high school and then another in March 2023 touched off frightening evacuations and a robust police response in the city. It also prompted the diocese to rethink what constitutes a model learning environment. Months after hundreds of students were met by SWAT teams, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh began forming its own armed police force. Wendell Hissrich, a former safety director for the city and career FBI unit chief, was hired that year to form a department to safeguard 39 Catholic schools as well as dozens of churches…
CLARKSBURG, California. – En una soleada mañana de agosto, en este pueblo agrícola, antes que las temperaturas se dispararan hasta los 103 grados Fahrenheit, el secretario de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS) de Estados Unidos, Xavier Becerra, se paró frente a la pequeña biblioteca pública. Becerra venía a hablar de los esfuerzos de la administración Biden para proteger a los trabajadores agrícolas del calor extremo y del humo de los incendios forestales, dos problemas de salud pública emergentes en primera línea de la crisis climática. “Todavía no existen suficientes protecciones para los trabajadores que cosechan los alimentos que comemos”, dijo…
The proportion of Americans without health insurance remained stable in 2023, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, close to the record low the Biden administration achieved in 2022 through expansions of public programs, including the Affordable Care Act. About 8% of Americans were uninsured, a statistically insignificant increase of just 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier. But because of the Census survey’s methodology, the findings likely don’t capture the experience of tens of millions of Americans purged from Medicaid rolls after pandemic-era protections expired in spring 2023. Enrollment in Medicaid, the government health program for people with low incomes and…
La música triunfal suena mientras pacientes con cáncer van de campamento, hacen jardinería y ven fuegos artificiales en anuncios de Opdivo+Yervoy, una combinación de inmunoterapias para tratar el melanoma metastásico y el cáncer de pulmón. Los comerciales de Skyrizi, un medicamento para tratar la psoriasis en placas y otras enfermedades, muestran a los pacientes buceando y andando en bicicleta, mostrando sus codos libres de erupciones. Las personas con diabetes tipo 2 bailan y cantan alrededor de sus cubículos en la oficina, sacándose el sombrero ante Jardiance. Ahora, los medicamentos se lanzan con el respaldo de celebridades: ¿no querrías probar Nurtec…
Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are both eager to take on high drug prices, leaving pharmaceutical companies on the defensive as they spend millions of dollars this election season. When Harris was California’s attorney general, she joined cases that resulted in almost $7.2 billion (about $22 per person in the United States) in fines for drug companies. In that role, she was an aggressive regulator of the drug industry. In her current position, she cast the tiebreaking Senate vote in 2022 for legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for its more than 60 million beneficiaries. As…
Suspicions that U.S. consumers’ personal information could be accessed from India led regulators to abruptly bar two large private sector enrollment websites from accessing the Affordable Care Act marketplace in August. New details about the suspensions come in legal filings made late Friday stemming from an effort by the two to regain access to the Obamacare marketplace before the upcoming ACA open enrollment period, which starts Nov. 1. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wrote in a Sept. 2 letter to the companies that they were suspended after the agency identified “a serious lapse in the security posture” that…
Cara Anthony SIKESTON, Mo. — In 1942, Mable Cook was a teenager. She was standing on her front porch when she witnessed the lynching of Cleo Wright. In the aftermath, Cook received advice from her father that was intended to keep her safe. “He didn’t want us talking about it,” Cook said. “He told us to forget it.” More than 80 years later, residents of Sikeston still find it difficult to talk about the lynching. Conversations with Cook, one of the few remaining witnesses of the lynching, launch a discussion of the health consequences of racism and violence in the…
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 noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z,” now in its third edition. The term “health equity” means different things to different people. It’s about access to medical care — but not only access to medical care. It’s about race, ethnicity, and gender; income, wealth, and class; and even geography — but…
Triumphant music plays as cancer patients go camping, do some gardening, and watch fireworks in ads for Opdivo+Yervoy, a combination of immunotherapies to treat metastatic melanoma and lung cancer. Ads for Skyrizi, a medicine to treat plaque psoriasis and other illnesses, show patients snorkeling and riding bikes — flashing their rash-free elbows. People with Type 2 diabetes dance and sing around their office carrels, tipping their hats to Jardiance. Drugs now come with celebrity endorsements: Wouldn’t you want the migraine treatment endorsed by Lady Gaga, Nurtec ODT? Drug ads have been ubiquitous on TV since the late 1990s and have…