KHN

WASHINGTON — Dr. Timothy McAvoy, an internist from Waukesha, Wisconsin, held his infant granddaughter Tuesday while standing in the Longworth House Office Building, waiting to talk to a congressional aide about increasing...

Bella Nyman has struggled with her mental health since age 7, when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety. Nyman said she was afraid to tell her parents she had thoughts of suicide. Looking back, a mental health...

When billionaire Mark Cuban announced his attack on the pharmaceutical industry and its high-priced drugs in January 2021, it was met with cheers. His new company — the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., known as Cost Plus Drugs —...

About four years ago, Dr. Gene Dorio sat on the ethics committee of a Southern California hospital whose administrators insisted they could decide whether to disconnect a ventilator from an unconscious patient — even though the...

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

Republican lawmakers in Montana wield a supermajority that gives them the power to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would break the link between abortion rights and the right to privacy in the state’s...

Narciso Lopez has spent more than two decades working to control the spread of tuberculosis in South Texas. He used to think that when patient traffic into the clinics where he worked was slow, that meant the surrounding...

When a patient faces an outrageous medical bill, they have two choices: Pay the balance or fight. Lauren Slemenda chose to fight. After failing to reach a consensus with the hospital on a fair price, she took the case to...

Vanessa Garcia Clark wanted a more personal, nontraditional birth when she was pregnant with her son. She hired a midwife and gave birth at her home in California. But when she asked her insurer to reimburse her for the...

Hannah Crabtree got active on Twitter in 2016 to find more people like herself: those with Type 1 diabetes who’d hacked their insulin pumps to automatically adjust the amount of insulin delivered. Soon, though, Crabtree...

Many people living on the streets in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood — the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast — are in full-blown addiction, openly snorting, smoking, or injecting illicit drugs, hunched...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing...

This year’s health policy valentine submissions were full of compassion for patients and concern over the nation’s health care system. KHN’s readers and tweeters are among the most creative news consumers,...

After several rounds of treatment for a rare eye cancer — weekly drug infusions that could cost nearly $50,000 each — Paul Davis learned Medicare had abruptly stopped paying the bills. That left Davis, a retired physician in...

LA PLANT, S.D. — Past a gravel road lined with old white wooden buildings is a new, 8-acre village dotted with colorful houses, tepees, and a sweat lodge. The Simply Smiles Children’s Village, in this small town on the...

Nonprofit hospitals are fighting Montana’s attempt to boost oversight of the ways they claim they provide benefits to their communities in exchange for millions of dollars in tax breaks. It’s the latest clash in a...

Pregnant and scared, Natasha Valle went to a Tennova Healthcare hospital in Clarksville, Tennessee, in January 2021 because she was bleeding. She didn’t know much about miscarriage, but this seemed like one. In the...

Megan Zawacki started working at St. Peter’s Health in Helena, Montana, in 2020 as a physician assistant trained in treating addiction. She had gone through specialized training that allowed her to prescribe Suboxone, a...

Time is running out for free-to-consumer covid vaccines, at-home test kits, and even some treatments. The White House announced this month that the national public health emergency, first declared in early 2020 in response to...

When covid-19 vaccines became available, Colorado public health officials initially relied on mass vaccination events publicized through Facebook, email, and texts, and required Coloradans to book appointments online. But when...