UnitedHealth Group’s multibillion-dollar pharmacy benefit manager, Optum Rx, is suing five Kentucky counties in an attempt to force them out of national opioid litigation against the company. Pharmacy benefit managers, often called PBMs, act as middlemen that negotiate prescription drug prices between drug companies, insurance plans, and pharmacies. Some lawyers and advocates say PBMs helped…
Dining under palm trees on a patio at Mar-a-Lago in December, President-elect Donald Trump reassured chief executives at pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Pfizer that anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wouldn’t be a radical choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services. “I think he’s going to be much less radical than…
BOGALUSA, La. — Less than a mile from a century-old mill that sustained generations in this small town north of New Orleans, 19-year-old Tajdryn Forbes was shot to death near his mother’s house. She found Forbes face down in the street in August 2023, two weeks before he had planned to move away from the…
Para padres de niños en edad escolar, la lista de cosas para hacer en el otoño puede parecer interminable. Comprar útiles. Completar largos formularios. Agendar la charla con los maestros. ¿Ya les quedan chicas las zapatillas? En algún momento, puede que recuerden las vacunas contra la gripe. Vacunarte. Vacunarlos. ¿Debería hacerlo? ¿Puedo hacerlo? ¿Sigue vigente?…
Jacob Sweidan has seen his patients through the federal immigration raids of the 1990s, a sitting governor’s call to abolish birthright citizenship, and the highly publicized workplace crackdowns and family separation policies of President Donald Trump’s first term. But in his 40 years as a pediatrician in Southern California serving those too poor to afford…
In southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley, clouds billow above the towering mountains of the Sangre de Cristo range. A chorus of blackbirds whistle as they flit among the reeds of a wildlife refuge. Big, circular fields of crops, interspersed with native shrubs, give it a feel of bucolic quiet. But amid the stark beauty in…
EKALAKA, Mont. — There was no doctor on-site when a patient arrived in early June at the emergency room in the small hospital at the intersection of two dirt roads in this town of 400 residents. There never is. Dahl Memorial’s three-bed emergency department — a two-hour drive from the closest hospital with more advanced…
MIAMI — GOP lawmakers in the 10 states that refused the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion for over a decade have argued their conservative approach to growing government programs would pay off in the long run. Instead, the Republican-passed budget law that includes many of President Donald Trump’s priorities will pose at least as big…
As the federal government reworks rules for a $42 billion broadband expansion program, millions of Americans live in places where there aren’t enough health care providers and internet speeds aren’t good enough for telehealth. A KFF Health News analysis found people in these “dead zones” live sicker and die younger on average than their peers…
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” REDDING, Calif. 𑁋 This spring, the Good News Rescue Mission, which runs the only emergency homeless shelter in Shasta County, received a game-changing $17.8 million state grant to build a…