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Sarah Varney was a senior correspondent for 鶹Ů Health News until August 2023.
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A KHN review of dozens of inspection reports filed over the past year by the Nakamoto Group reveals disturbing patterns about the company’s audits, including a general willingness to accept accounts of the facilities that the company is paid to scrutinize, and to discount detainees’ complaints.
KHN, in collaboration with PBS NewsHour, reports on the skyrocketing cost of insulin — and the trend's deadly consequences. The price in the U.S. nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016, prompting some patients and activists to travel to Canada, where insulin can be 90% cheaper.
The Adelanto ICE Processing Center houses nearly 2,000 people in California. Federal, state and watchdog reviews say the Florida-based firm that runs the facility fails to provide adequate health care.
As calls for "Medicare-for-all" grow louder among Democrats in Congress, Democratic governors and mayors have been pushing ahead with urgency to corral medical costs and bring health care to those who remain uninsured.
Federal family planning funds, known as Title X, will soon fund for-profit women’s clinics that bar condoms, hormonal birth control and IUDs and offer only “natural family planning.”
The island’s government must squeeze $840.2 million in annual savings from Medicaid by 2023, part of the U.S. territory’s agreement with the federal government as Puerto Rico claws its way back from fiscal oblivion. Experts warn such drastic cuts defy actuarial science.
More than six months ago, Hurricane Maria upended routines and shuttered services on the island leading to a sense of despair and isolation, especially among older people.
More than six months after Hurricane Maria, daily life in Castañer, Puerto Rico, is nowhere close to normal as residents try to deal with the effects of trauma, chronic stress and the continued lack of electricity.
Some of the safety-net programs set up after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico are being disbanded.
The deadly storm turned a health challenge into a full-blown medical crisis for one young man with unconfirmed multiple sclerosis. And still he waits to see a neurologist.
Some mothers who smoke pot see it as a harmless remedy for everything from pain to postpartum depression. But doctors say the active ingredients in marijuana can be passed onto the baby and may affect developing nervous systems.
Research shows that living in more affluent, less segregated neighborhoods can improve health problems like asthma and high blood pressure. Communities around the country are experimenting with moving some families to boost their health.
Moly-99, as it’s called, is created in just six government-owned nuclear research reactors — none in North America — raising concerns about the reliability of the supply.
Even though voters in Maine decided to expand Medicaid through a ballot measure, the law's fate is still unclear. Gov. Paul LePage says the Legislature must find funds for it without raising taxes. Advocates say the law is on their side and expansion must be implemented.
Harvesting U.S. crops has been left to an aging population of farmworkers whose health has suffered from decades of hard labor. Older workers have a greater chance of getting injured and of developing chronic illnesses.
The hurricane closed pharmacies and clinics for a week or longer. Floodwaters spoiled drugs. People who fled to other states couldn't get their prescriptions filled for HIV medicine.
Refugee women from conservative Muslim countries can be shocked by some U.S. medical conventions — like trusting a male doctor to care for them.
The medical supply industry makes a particularly revelatory case study of the difficulties of untangling global trade.
Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals made a high-stakes trade of massive cuts in federal aid in exchange for millions of newly insured customers. Now that deal is in jeopardy.
Intense, “high touch” care that focuses on housing as well as health care brings down medical costs for the most expensive patients. But it’s been hard to replicate successful programs.
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