Blog

• KFF Health News: Lack of Affordability Tops Older Americans’ List of Health Care Worries

  July 11, 2024: What weighs most heavily on older adults’ minds when it comes to health care? The cost of services and therapies, and their ability to pay. “It’s on our minds a whole lot because of our age and because everything keeps getting more expens...Read more >

• KFF Health News: The Burden of Getting Medical Care Can Exhaust Older Patients

  March 27, 2024: Susanne Gilliam, 67, was walking down her driveway to get the mail in January when she slipped and fell on a patch of black ice. Pain shot through her left knee and ankle. After summoning her husband on her phone, with difficulty she made it back ...Read more >

• KFF Health News: America’s Health System Isn’t Ready for the Surge of Seniors With Disabilities

  January 17, 2024: The number of older adults with disabilities — difficulty with walking, seeing, hearing, memory, cognition, or performing daily tasks such as bathing or using the bathroom — will soar in the decades ahead, as baby boomers enter their 70s, 80s, an...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Deep Flaws in FDA Oversight of Medical Devices, and Patient Harm, Exposed in Lawsuits and Records

  December 21, 2023: Living with diabetes, Carlton “PeeWee” Gautney Jr. relied on a digital device about the size of a deck of playing cards to pump insulin into his bloodstream. The pump, manufactured by device maker Medtronic, connected plastic tubing to an insu...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Extra Fees Drive Assisted Living Profits

  November 21, 2023: Assisted living centers have become an appealing retirement option for hundreds of thousands of boomers who can no longer live independently, promising a cheerful alternative to the institutional feel of a nursing home. But their cost is so crushi...Read more >

• KFF Health News: Save Billions or Stick With Humira? Drug Brokers Steer Americans to the Costly Choice

  September 21, 2023: Tennessee last year spent $48 million on a single drug, Humira — about $62,000 for each of the 775 patients who were covered by its employee health insurance program and receiving the treatment. So when nine Humira knockoffs, known as biosimilars, ...Read more >

• Government Watchdogs Attack Medicare Advantage for Denying Care and Overcharging

  June 30, 2022: Congress should crack down on Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors that sometimes deny patients vital medical care while overcharging the government billions of dollars every year, government watchdogs told a House panel Tuesday. Witnesses ...Read more >

• Kaiser Health News: It’s Your Choice: You Can Change Your Views of Aging and Improve Your Life

  April 13, 2022: People’s beliefs about aging have a profound impact on their health, influencing everything from their memory and sensory perceptions to how well they walk, how fully they recover from disabling illness, and how long they live. When aging is...Read more >

• KHN: As Covid Slogs On, Seniors Find Fortitude Waning and Malaise Growing

  February 24, 2022: Late one night in January, Jonathan Coffino, 78, turned to his wife as they sat in bed. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he said, glumly. Coffino was referring to the caution that’s come to define his life during t...Read more >

• For Older Patients, Exercise Could Speed Recovery Following Hospitalization

  February 18, 2022: Even though bed rest is commonly prescribed for older adults recovering from a hospital stay, many health care professionals are highlighting the risks associated with such inactivity. In one study on older hospital patients from 2008, scientist...Read more >