Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed fatal measles cases on CBS News 24/7’s Mornings on Aug. 26. Gounder fact-checked Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz’s comments about vaccines and drug prices on CBS News 24/7’s The Daily Report on Aug. 24. She also discussed food recalls this summer on CBS News 24/7’s The Takeout With Major Garrett on Aug. 24.
The KFF Health News Minute is available every Thursday via direct download or the RSS feed.
KFF Health News will be on hiatus from Aug. 31-Sept. 7. The next installment of KFF Health News Minute will publish on Sept. 10.
Aug. 28
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: Violence against hospital workers fuels calls for mandatory staffing rules. Plus, tips on how to find a clinical trial.
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In the summer of 2024, Emilie and Justin Solomon found themselves on a top-secret mission in Greece.
Their family and friends thought the adventure-loving couple was on another jet-setting vacation, but they were keeping something else under wraps: They had turned off their phone locations to hide visits to a Greek clinic where they were trying to get pregnant.
On an August morning two years ago, Meredith Melville was crossing Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California, to meet a friend at a cafe. While in the crosswalk, she noticed a car some distance away.
Perhaps she misjudged its speed, she said, because she’d walked only partway across the street when the car, a Toyota sedan, came bearing down on her.
“She should have seen me,” Melville said of the driver. “All of a sudden she was there, and I didn’t have any way to get out of her way. I flew I don’t know how many feet.”
In the thick of his competitive reelection race in Michigan, Republican Rep. Tom Barrett joined Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a sprawling 400-acre apple orchard, farm, and winery. They touted Trump administration efforts to improve the American diet, including the removal of some artificial dyes from processed foods.
“We had a great discussion about healthy options for all Americans and taking back control of our healthcare,” Barrett said in a June Instagram post, after sampling the farm’s apple cider.
KFF Health News worked with three Louisiana news outlets — The Current, Gulf States Newsroom, and Verite News — to ask all 64 sheriffs in the state how they’ve spent their opioid settlement funds. The responses were shared and presented in a data table for all four newsrooms to use. Reporters then conducted individual reporting for separate articles.
One year into its creation, a $50 billion federal program aimed at improving rural healthcare lacks transparency, which could make it difficult to protect against fraud, identify successful projects, and ensure the program delivers on its promise to transform the system.
Transparency “is really important to help protect the integrity of the program, ensure funds are reaching the communities they’re meant to serve,” said Maya Sandalow, director of health policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit think tank.
MILLVILLE, Pa. — In an open field, arrows whizzed through the humid June air and struck their targets. Campers and counselors cheered.
It was archery hour at Camp Cranium. Operations director Drew Meyer watched, a few tears escaping from behind his dark sunglasses.
“They will surprise you, like, flat out,” he said of the campers, who have all survived brain injuries. “They’ll come out here, and they’ll shoot for three hours and start hitting the target.”
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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Carlos A. grew up in a family on Medicaid, which made healthcare an afterthought since the public insurance is free for low-income enrollees. But when he received a raise two years ago, he found himself earning too much to qualify for the safety net program. And when he browsed Covered California plans, he found that marketplace prices were still too steep for his comfort.
“It was a panic at first,” Carlos said.
Last year, Stephanie Halver’s primary care doctor consulted a risk assessment tool to calculate her chances of one day developing breast cancer. Halver, now 43, remembered the likelihood “popped up really high.”
That’s partly because Halver’s mother and aunt have had breast cancer. Her age and dense breast tissue also put her at higher risk.
Halver, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, said her doctor recommended she get an annual breast MRI, six months after her yearly mammogram. The scan would serve as an additional safeguard, since breast MRIs can detect abnormalities that mammograms miss.
At Chain of Lakes Elementary School in Winter Haven, Florida, Josette Smith’s 9-year-old son, Ethan, gets to do what he loves most: crafts, math, and science. That is, when he isn’t being pulled out of class.
Ethan has autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He was diagnosed with autism in kindergarten after displaying behavior that concerned his relatives: He paced, flapped his arms, and became consumed with highly specific interests, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and dachshunds.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Just west of the St. Johns River, which divides this sprawling city racially and economically, 2-year-old A’mahri Robinson was murdered in his mother’s arms.
Ladonna Johnson was rocking A’mahri to sleep in March when he was shot in the head with a gun she kept for protection.
A’mahri loved going outdoors and taking rides in his pull-along wagon. His mother called the toddler “sweet” and “affectionate.” When he was around, she said, “you just felt love.”
In January, Jeff La Marca got a prescription for the popular weight loss drug Zepbound. But he couldn’t afford the $750 monthly price tag.
Then Medicare launched an 18-month pilot program that offers GLP-1 medications to some enrollees for only $50 a month. La Marca thought he might finally be able to afford the drug.
“I thought, ‘Thank God, there’s a path,’” said La Marca, who lives in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and has tried numerous diets and exercise regimes.
But the 68-year-old’s celebration was short-lived.
His application to the pilot program was denied.
California is weighing stiff penalties for hospitals and other healthcare entities that don’t stay under state spending limits, potentially levying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines if these providers don’t take steps to rein in rising healthcare costs.
If the state Office of Health Care Affordability adopts the fines next week, hospitals, medical groups, insurers, and others could face penalties that amount to as much as 125% of the total they spend above the state’s annual growth targets.
Misinformation and distrust are among the challenges facing public health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo as they confront the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak on record. Even though the virus has faded from U.S. headlines, key organizations are still at work providing medical care and training to counter the spread of the disease.
Céline Gounder, KFF Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the potential of Moderna’s melanoma vaccine breakthrough on CBS News 24/7’s The Daily Report on Aug. 19, drawing on her experience as a former melanoma patient.
Click here to watch Gounder on The Daily Report.
KFF Health News senior correspondent Rachana Pradhan discussed how an issue with Deloitte-run information technology systems denied Medicaid coverage to disabled Michiganders on NPR’s Stateside on Aug. 18.
The ongoing debate over the U.S. health system shouldn’t be based on whether the government or the private sector is the dominant player, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said this week. The bigger issue, he said, is whether the system’s participants are transparent about what they charge and what they pay.
“I’m not opposed to single-payer or universal healthcare at all,” Cuban said Aug. 18 in an interview with KFF Health News. But “when you don’t know all the costs, when there’s no transparency, it’s impossible to determine if it’s a better solution or not,” he said.
People with disabilities have long fought for the right to live at home rather than in institutions. Now, the Department of Justice says states don’t have to help make that happen.
The decision by the Trump administration comes amid massive cuts in federal funding for Medicaid. Advocates worry this could be a one-two punch for disabled Americans who want to live independently.
KFF Health News senior correspondent Stephanie Armour joined WAMU’s Health Hub on Aug. 19 to explain what this change means for Americans with disabilities and their loved ones.
Evelyn Griffin had led a life out of the spotlight until she testified at the Louisiana Statehouse five years ago and experienced what she called her “great awakening.”
The state health department wanted to add covid vaccines to the school immunization schedule, a move no state has ever implemented. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then known as a leading vaccine skeptic, had already claimed the covid shot was “the deadliest vaccine ever made” during a poster board presentation at the legislative hearing.
Nurse Crystal Dhooghe is used to dealing with blood and broken bones in the emergency room. But she didn’t expect to witness so much violence against her own colleagues.
“I’ve seen nurses get shoved, pushed, scratched. The biggest one is bitten,” said Dhooghe, who works at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
