The public outrage over high-priced hepatitis C drugs is taking a new twist as Louisiana’s top health official proposes using an obscure federal law to get the medicines at a much lower cost. If successful, other states could reap the benefits. Right now, covering treatment for the 35,000 of Louisiana’s uninsured and Medicaid-dependent residents with […]

Helping homeless Medi-Cal patients afford shelter could curb their frequent emergency room visits and save California millions of dollars a year, state housing and health care advocates say. California lawmakers are considering a measure to devote an additional $90 million in state housing money over five years to subsidize rent for homeless Medi-Cal patients. That money would […]

The Food and Drug Administration is under pressure from the Trump administration to approve drugs faster, but researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found that nearly a third of those approved from 2001 through 2010 had major safety issues years after they were widely available to patients. Seventy-one of the 222 drugs approved in […]

Two influential Republican congressmen are blasting a Department of Health and Human Services memo to division heads as a “potentially illegal and unconstitutional” infringement on whistleblowers’ rights to call attention to waste, fraud and abuse in the executive branch. The May 3 memo from HHS Secretary Tom Price’s chief of staff, Lance Leggitt, instructed employees […]

Un panel internacional de expertos en salud y pacientes desafió la eficacia de uno de los procedimientos ortopédicos más comunes y recomendó fuertemente no realizar la cirugía artroscópica en pacientes con problemas degenerativos de rodilla. Las guías, publicadas en la revista BMJ y basadas en 13 estudios que involucraron a casi 1,700 pacientes, concluyeron que […]

A man named Eddie threaded through the midafternoon crowd in Cambridge, Mass. He was headed for a sandwich shop, the first stop on a tour of public bathrooms. “I know all the bathrooms that I can and can’t get high in,” said Eddie, 39, pausing in front of the shop’s plate-glass windows, through which we can […]

If there’s anything congressional Republicans want to do more than “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act it’s defund Planned Parenthood, which provides health care to women around the country. But Senate rules could prevent lawmakers from accomplishing both of those goals in the same bill, as they intend to do. The American Health Care […]

Sherry King had lost her job as a dental assistant and was stretching her food, sometimes going without any fresh fruit or vegetables. But the suburban Houston resident didn’t reach out for any help — even from her own relatives, whom she didn’t want to worry. Then she switched to a new doctor late last […]

For African-Americans, the isolation of living in a racially segregated neighborhood may lead to an important health issue: higher blood pressure. A study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine suggested blacks living in such areas experienced higher blood pressure than those living in more diverse communities. Moving to integrated areas was associated with a decrease […]