Family members often provide caregiving for people with dementia and it can take a financial and emotional toll. Ocskaymark/iStockphoto/Getty Images hide caption
Policy-ish : Shots - Health News Who gets what sort of care often boils down to big decisions about policy. Find the latest on the federal health overhaul, the intersection of government regulation and health, and the battle to contain costs.
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Excess sound from airplanes or freeways or equipment can affect health. Kevin Carter/Getty Images hide caption
U.S. Supreme Court Police officers put up barricades to separate anti-abortion activists from abortion rights activists during a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2024. JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Dr. Stephanie Arnold, who prefers bright-colored clothes instead of a white coat, meets with a patient who needs a pelvic exam. The family medicine clinic Arnold founded offers reproductive health care, including abortion, alongside all kinds of other care. “It’s a little bit of everything, which is very typical of family medicine,” she says. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption
People have been pleasantly surprised to find Affordable Care Act insurance plans under $10 a month since President Biden has been in office. The plans were more expensive and fewer people bought them during Donald Trump's presidential term. Joe Raedle/Getty Images hide caption
How Biden and Trump disagree over how to address the cost of health care
The Biden administration set a new minimum standard for nursing home staffing, but the nursing home industry is suing to try to stop the rule from taking effect. Ashley Milne-Tyte hide caption
Biden administration takes steps to increase staffing levels at nursing homes
Hilary Fung/NPR hide caption
6 key facts about abortion laws and the 2024 election
Mifepristone and misoprostol inside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights, Ill. in 2021. The drugs are used after miscarriage and for bleeding and other obstetrical procedures and problems. In combination, they can also induce an early abortion. Lawmakers in Baton Rouge are considering a bill to reclassify the medications as controlled dangerous substances. Jeff Roberson/AP hide caption
Louisiana may reclassify drugs used in abortion as controlled dangerous substances
A coalition of advocates call for full Medicaid expansion in Mississippi at a rally at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The gathering drew supporters from throughout the state representing religious, social and human service organizations, medical professionals and legislators. Rogelio V. Solis/AP hide caption
Alondra Mercado, a community health worker with the Central California Asthma Collaborative, helps provide services through an ambitious California Medicaid initiative. On a recent morning in March, she visited a family in Turlock to teach a mother how to control in-home asthma triggers that cause flare-ups in her young son. Angela Hart/KFF Health News hide caption
Medical debt is as much a hallmark of having children as long nights and dirty diapers. The Crivilare family, Andrew, Heather and Rita, 2, are pictured at their kitchen table in Jacksonville, Ill. Neeta Satam for KFF Health News hide caption
Their first baby came with medical debt. These Illinois parents won't have another.
The Match Day ceremony at the University of California, Irvine, on March 15. Match Day is the day when medical students seeking residency and fellowship training positions find out their options. Increasingly, medical students are choosing to go to states that don't restrict abortion. Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group via Getty Images hide caption
Medicaid plans aren't required to cover Wegovy for weight loss and obesity, but some do and others are considering adding it for those uses. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption
Esther Nesbitt lost two of her children to drug overdoses, and her grandchildren are among more than 320,000 who lost parents in the overdose epidemic. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption
A survey shows that doctors have trouble taking full vacations from their high-stress jobs. Even when they do, they often still do work on their time off. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption
For decades, all research in federally funded laboratories had to use only marijuana grown at a single facility located in Oxford, Mississippi. Brad Horrigan/Hartford Courant/Tribune News Service via Getty Images hide caption
Scientists welcome new rules on marijuana, but research will still face obstacles
The hope was that bringing many other services to people with high needs would stabilize their health problems. While the strategy has succeeded sometimes, it hasn't saved money. Douglas Sacha/Getty Images hide caption
How do you help patients who show up in the ER 100 times a year?
After an alarming spike in 2021, maternal mortality numbers the next year went back down, according to a report released Thursday. CDC Director Mandy Cohen says the rates are still too high. Rich Legg/Getty Images hide caption
The medical community dates pregnancy to the first day of a woman's last period, even though fertilization generally happens two weeks after that. It's a long-standing practice but a confusing one. Nikola Stojadinovic/Getty Images hide caption
Cases about transgender people and their rights have been working their way through the court system for years. Here, people demonstrate in favor of trans rights in front of the Supreme Court in 2019. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP hide caption
Transgender health care must be paid for by state insurance, says an appeals court
Employers are required to make accommodations for pregnant women and new moms like time off for doctor's appointments. Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images hide caption