Commonwealth Fund News and Research

RSS

California’s expanded health coverage for immigrants collides with Medicaid reviews

Medi-Cal health coverage kicked in for Antonio Abundis just when the custodian needed it most.

22 Mar 2024

Biden is right. The US generally pays double that of other countries for Rx drugs.

It's well documented that Americans pay high prices for health care. But do they pay double or more for prescriptions compared with the rest of the world? President Joe Biden said they did.

6 Mar 2024

Reinsurance programs may increase costs for ACA marketplace enrollees

Reinsurance programs, which were created to help lower premiums and increase enrollment in the Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplaces, may have had the opposite effects for many potential marketplace enrollees, according to a study by health policy researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, Duke University and University of Minnesota.

5 Mar 2024

Harnessing repetitive DNA for early cancer detection

People with cancer have different amounts of a type of repetitive DNA -; called Alu elements -; than people without cancer.

4 Mar 2024

The equity imperative: A roundtable on transforming healthcare

In the Roundtable titled "A Glimpse at How Stakeholders Are Working Towards Achieving Health Equity," published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Equity, two expert panel discussions examine efforts to achieve maternal health equity and changes that health systems can make to operationalize health equity.

9 Jan 2024

What long-term care looks like around the world

Around the world, wealthy countries are struggling to afford long-term care for rapidly aging populations.

14 Nov 2023

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Underinsured is the new uninsured

The annual U.S. Census Bureau report this week revealed a drop in the uninsured rate last year as more working-age people obtained employer coverage.

14 Sep 2023

Doctors created a primary care clinic as their former hospital struggled

About a year ago, Valory Wangler, a family medicine doctor, invited a handful of former co-workers to her backyard.

21 Jul 2023

Abortion bans are driving off doctors and closing clinics, putting basic health care at risk

The rush in conservative states to ban abortion after the overturn of Roe v. Wade is resulting in a startling consequence that abortion opponents may not have considered: fewer medical services available for all women living in those states.

24 May 2023

Are US prescription drug prices 10 times those of other nations? Only sometimes

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whether in Congress or as a presidential candidate, has always taken strong positions against the high cost of prescription drugs.

19 May 2023

Many top-selling brand-name drugs in Medicare may provide little added therapeutic benefit

Brand-name drugs cost two to three times more in the U.S. than in other countries, but many of the top-selling brand name drugs may provide little added therapeutic benefit.

18 Apr 2023

Study reveals why COVID-19 subvariants spread rapidly among previously infected people

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide (1.1 million in the United States) and severely harmed many millions more, though vaccines and antiviral treatments measurably reduced the potential loss of life and health.

22 Mar 2023

The US remains a grim leader in preterm births. Why? And can we fix it?

Tamara Etienne's second pregnancy was freighted with risk and worry from its earliest days — exacerbated by a first pregnancy that had ended in miscarriage.

16 Mar 2023

Presence of academic medical centers linked to better outcomes for patients treated at nearby community hospitals

An academic medical center (AMC), sometimes called a teaching hospital, is a hospital that is integrated with a medical school and that serves as the principal site for the education of medical students and trainees.

1 Feb 2023

The impact of the US vaccination program on reducing infections, hospitalizations, and deaths

A recent study reported that in the two years following the initiation of the US COVID-19 vaccination campaign, over 18 million hospitalizations and three million deaths have been prevented, and close to $1.15 trillion have been saved in medical costs.

16 Dec 2022

What Germany’s coal miners can teach America about medical debt

Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany's Saarland.

14 Dec 2022

More states to consider extending postpartum Medicaid coverage beyond two months

This open enrollment season, look out for health insurance that seems too good to be true

It took nearly a year for Kelly Macauley to realize the health plan she bought while shopping for insurance coverage last October was not, in fact, insurance.

1 Nov 2022

Geographical location of an individual may determine the likelihood of receiving autism diagnosis

New autism diagnoses tend to be clustered within specific NHS service regions, suggesting that where an individual lives may influence whether they receive an autism diagnosis and access to special education needs support.

25 Oct 2022

Food insufficiency increased in US households by 25% after expiration of Child Tax Credit payments

When Congress failed to renew advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments last year, public health experts feared that the loss of this monthly federal pandemic relief benefit would push millions of families and children in America back into poverty and hunger.

21 Oct 2022