The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
New research published in JAMA Network Open quantified for the first time international differences in doctors’ prescribing habits and patients’ use of these highly addictive painkillers.
A proposed state law would require on-campus health centers to provide students with the medicines that allow them to end an unwanted pregnancy. Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill last year, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he would sign it.
Throughout her young life, Sylvia Colt-Lacayo has been told her disability didn’t need to hold her back. She graduated near the top of her high school class. She was co-captain of the mock trial team. In April, she learned she had been admitted to Stanford University with a full scholarship. Now, the struggle to fund the caregivers she needs to leave home is proving her toughest battle yet.
In the background, advisers weigh the risks of rolling out a comprehensive health care proposal. Peering into the crystal ball, here’s a glimpse of what could be included in the GOP plan.
Dentistry in the U.S. can get expensive, even with good insurance. So more people are taking a trip to beautiful Costa Rica to cut the dentistry bill — and perhaps get a tan.
One out of every 13 older Americans struggles to find enough food to eat while the federal program intended to help hasn’t kept pace with the graying population.
In Colorado case, the right to aid a cancer patient’s death runs up against faith-based hospital policies. As more states have passed laws, about 1 in 6 acute care beds nationally is in a hospital that is Catholic-owned or -affiliated.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
The new law, a response to escalating suicide rates among teens, is intended to ensure students know that immediate help is available if they need it.
Patients are often told to be smart consumers and shop around for health care before they use it. What happens when people actually take that advice?
Germany’s pharmacies provide insights into the country’s low drug prices and strict regulations. But they’re still businesses.
The individual insurance market in Washington is dominated by companies that do business only in the Pacific Northwest, and the state’s insurance commissioner credits them with helping keep premium rates lower than in other states.
Thomas Insel, who ran the National Institute of Mental Health for 13 years before casting his lot with Silicon Valley, is taking a temporary break from his senior position at a health care startup to advise Gov. Gavin Newsom on how to remake mental health care in the Golden State.
As the Indian government reluctantly loosens its prescription opioid laws after decades of lobbying by palliative care advocates desperate to ease their patients’ pain, the nation’s sprawling, cash-fed health care system is ripe for misuse.
What began in India as a populist movement to bring inexpensive morphine to the diseased and dying poor has paved the way for a booming pain management industry. Now, new customers are being funneled to U.S. drugmakers bedeviled by a government crackdown back home.
In Utah, 85% of deaths from firearms are suicides. To help people who might be vulnerable, outreach workers are discussing suicide prevention at gun shows and firearms classes.
Doctors who saw patients with a mysterious lung illness in the past suspected vaping as the cause but didn’t know where to report such cases.
Congress has a variety of reforms in mind that could roil the drugmaking business and potentially slash prices.
Confusion about a new federal rule to restrict legal immigration based on the use of public benefits may dampen sign-ups for health care, housing and food aid even among immigrants not directly targeted by the rule. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions that will help clear up some of the misunderstanding.
The state judge ruled that drugmaker Johnson & Johnson contributed to the opioid epidemic that has claimed the lives of 6,000 Oklahomans.
