Kff Health News

Senior living: Nurse practitioners critical in treating elders as ranks of geriatricians shrink

June 23, 2025 at 6:00 a.m.

Nurse practitioners are increasingly filling a gap that is expected to widen as the senior population explodes and the number of geriatricians declines.

Starting in 2026, most of California’s roughly 1,200 nursing home facilities must extend their backup power capability to 96 hours under AB 2511, which lawmakers passed and Newsom signed in 2022. Gov. Gavin Newsom has put the bill on a list of those he wants suspended. (iStockphoto/Getty Images)

Newsom’s push to block law could save California nursing homes over $1 billion

June 9, 2025 at 10:47 a.m.

Starting next year, most of California’s roughly 1,200 facilities must extend their backup power capability to 96 hours under AB 2511.

With Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) by his side President Donald Trump speaks to the press following a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump will joined conservative House lawmakers to help push through their budget bill after it advanced through the House Budget Committee on Sunday evening. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

How Trump’s ‘one big beautiful bill’ continues its assault on Obamacare

June 3, 2025 at 11:32 a.m.

Millions would lose Medicaid coverage and millions more left without health insurance. Signing up for ACA plans would be harder and more expensive.

Comirnaty, the new Pfizer/BioNTech vaccination booster for COVID-19, in stock at the Baldwin Park CVS store on New Broad Street in Orlando, Fla., Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. Pharmacies across the U.S. have started administering new COVID-19 boosters, recommended for everyone 6 months and older by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

RFK Jr. says healthy pregnant women don’t need Covid boosters. Science says threat still meaningful

June 2, 2025 at 12:39 p.m.

A UCLA professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology says he still sees more bad outcomes in pregnant patients who have Covid.

Pamela Moser holds a photo of her son, Brian Rigsby, who died while incarcerated in an Alabama state prison. (Tamika Moore/KFF Health News/TNS)

Prisons routinely ignore guidelines on dying inmates’ end-of-life choices

May 31, 2025 at 6:21 a.m.

Incarcerated people typically have little say over the care they receive at the end of their lives.

Senior Living: DOJ accuses Medicare Advantage insurers of paying ‘kickbacks’ for primo customers

May 26, 2025 at 6:07 a.m.

About a third of enrollees seek help in making complex decisions about whether to enroll in original Medicare or Medicare Advantage.

Ada Carol Adkins points to a copper wire on the ground in March. The wire, which she says was stolen in April, provided phone service. Adkins says Frontier replaced the line and“ tied it up higher in some places.” Before, a deer stepping on the line could cut off her service, Adkins says. (Owen Hornstein/InvestigateTV/TNS)

Flawed federal programs maroon rural Americans in telehealth blackouts

May 25, 2025 at 6:16 a.m.

Programs to connect rural Americans are ensnared in Trump administration policy shifts.

Startups are marketing AI products with lifelike voices to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions and help triage patients. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

First, call centers replaced many doctor receptionists. Now, AI is coming

May 22, 2025 at 3:41 p.m.

Zocdoc, the appointment-booking company, has introduced an automated assistant it says can schedule visits without human intervention 70% of the time.

Senior living: Californians receiving in-home care fear consequences of Medicaid cuts

May 19, 2025 at 6:00 a.m.

Nearly 800,000 Californians rely on aides from the state's In-Home Supportive Services program. But proposed federal cuts to Medicaid could trigger reductions.

A traveler passes an Automated External Defibrillator in Terminal 1 Nov. 12, 2003, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. The Chicago Airport System implemented the first public-access defibrillation program at all its airports, including O’Hare International Airport. The units are in cabinets that are directly linked to the City of Chicago’s… (Tim Boyle/Getty Images North America/TNS)

Fast action from bystanders can improve cardiac arrest survival. Many don’t know what to do

May 18, 2025 at 7:11 a.m.

Every minute that passes without intervention reduces the odds of survival by 10%.

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