The Trump administration’s overhaul of the nation’s largest food assistance program will cause millions of people to lose benefits, strain state budgets, and pressure the nation’s food supply chain, all while likely hindering the goals of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” platform, according to researchers and former federal officials. Permanent changes to the Supplemental…
Saturday is the day that nearly 24 million customers can start purchasing health plans on healthcare.gov and the state-run Obamacare exchanges. Higher prices and uncertainty await many of those shoppers. Average premiums are expected to more than double. The directors who manage marketplace enrollment in states including Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, and Idaho told me and my colleague Julie Appleby that people are wondering how they’ll scrape together hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars more next year to pay for these…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social 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…
In late October, Maine Family Planning announced three rural clinics in northern Maine would close by month’s end. These primary care and reproductive health clinics served about 800 patients, many uninsured or on Medicaid. “People don’t realize how much these clinics hold together the local health system until they’re gone,” said George Hill, the group’s…
Last winter, Amber Wingler started getting a series of increasingly urgent messages from the local hospital in Columbia, Missouri, letting her know her family’s health care might soon be upended. MU Health Care, where most of her family’s doctors work, was mired in a contract dispute with Wingler’s health insurer, Anthem. The existing contract was…
Medical educators and health professionals warn that new federal student loan caps in President Donald Trump’s tax cut law could make it more expensive for many people to become doctors and could exacerbate physician shortages nationwide. And, they warn, the economic burden will steer many medical students to lucrative specialties in more affluent, urban areas…
One family in Virginia Beach, Virginia, just found out their health plan’s deductible will jump from $800 to $20,000 next year. About 200 miles north, in Maryland, another household learned they’ll pay $500 more monthly to insure their brood in 2026. And thousands of people in Idaho were greeted with insurance rates that’ll cost, on…
In April, Thomas Sanford, a medical student who regularly listens to “An Arm and a Leg,” set out to create a resource he could easily share with patients to help them deal with unaffordable medical bills. In this mini-episode, host Dan Weissmann talks with Sanford about how handing out charity care information on tiny cards…
Kitty Grutzmacher estuvo lidiando con problemas para oír durante una década, pero la situación empeoró en el último año. Incluso con sus audífonos, “oía poco o nada”, dijo. “Evitaba salir en grupo. Dejé de jugar a las cartas, de ir a los estudios de la Biblia e incluso dejé de ir a la iglesia”. Su…
KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire this year and the ongoing federal shutdown on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle” on Oct. 18. Click here to watch Rovner on MSNBC. Rovner also discussed the shutdown and health care costs on WYPR’s…
