Medicare Advantage – the commercial alternative to traditional Medicare – is drawing down federal health care funds, costing taxpayers an extra 22% per enrollee to the tune of US$83 billion a year.

Medicare Advantage, also known as Part C, was supposed to save the government money. The competition among private insurance companies...Read more

Does cancer, kidney disease or high blood pressure run in your family? Knowing your family health history is crucial. The holidays are the perfect time to share family health information with your loved ones.

The Office of the Surgeon General declared Thanksgiving as National Family History Day to encourage families to share information about ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — The National Institutes of Health have awarded an epidemiology professor at the University of Pennsylvania $11 million to study the link between chemical exposures and dementia.

The project will test blood and urine samples from thousands of people, looking for traces of environmental chemicals such as pesticides and metals, ...Read more

Regarding Robert F. Kennedy Jr., there is little middle ground — people either love him or hate him. Which is why, after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the haters came out. Legal health care expert Lawrence Gostin said of the nomination, “I can’t think of a darker day for ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could embolden Republicans who want to weaken or repeal the Affordable Care Act, but implementing such sweeping changes would still require overcoming procedural and political hurdles.

Trump, long an ACA opponent, expressed interest during the campaign in retooling the health law. In ...Read more

The opioid crisis remains a significant public health challenge in the United States. In 2022, over 2.5 million American adults had an opioid use disorder, and opioids accounted for nearly 76% of overdose deaths.

Some patients are fearful of using opioids after surgery due to concerns about dependence and potential side effects, even ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Missouri judge on Monday upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, allowing the state to continue prohibiting treatments such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers for people under 18.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Craig Carter from southern Douglas County wrote in a 74-page order on Monday that the ban...Read more

No matter what dishes are on the table this coming season of feasts — which starts off for Americans with Thanksgiving on Thursday — one word will float through everyone’s mind: calories. How many? How sinful? How empty? How delicious? How boring? How much in carbohydrates? In protein? In fat? How soon to the gym?

The word is extremely ...Read more

As a parent, it's difficult to watch your child struggle. At any age, you hurt for them. You want to help―but there comes a point when helping can be harmful.

Removing obstacles from their path may make life easier in the short term, but as they approach college and young adulthood, it could set them up for bigger problems.

So, how can you ...Read more

MIAMI -- As her students finished their online exam, Arlet Lara got up to make a cafe con leche.

Her 16-year-old son found her on the kitchen floor. First, he called Dad in a panic. Then 911.

“I had a stroke and my life made a 180-degree turn,” Lara told the Miami Herald, recalling the medical scare she experienced in May 2020 in the early...Read more

Indiana residents and federal officials are urging state health regulators to stop two rival hospitals in Terre Haute from merging. The deal, if approved, would leave residents with a hospital monopoly.

Union Health, a nonprofit whose main hospital is licensed as a 341-bed facility, would buy the county’s only other acute care hospital, the ...Read more

Nearly a year after the Biden administration gave Florida the green light to become the first state to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada — a longtime goal of politicians across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump — the program has yet to begin.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the FDA’s approval ...Read more

A California agency charged with slowing health costs has set a lofty goal for insurers to direct 15% of their spending to primary care by 2034, part of the state’s effort to expand the primary care workforce and give more people access to preventive care services.

The board of the state Office of Health Care Affordability in October set its ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the sprawling government agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace — celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz — recently held broad investments in health care, tech, and food companies that would pose significant conflicts of interest.

Oz’s holdings, some shared ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A cluster of workers at Ventura County berry farms have been diagnosed with a rare disease often transmitted through sick animals’ urine, according to a public health advisory distributed to local doctors by county health officials Tuesday.

The bacterial infection, leptospirosis, has resulted in severe symptoms for some ...Read more

Every day millions of people share more intimate information with their accessories than they do with their spouse.

Wearable technology — smartwatches, smart rings, fitness trackers and the like — monitors body-centric data such as your heart rate, steps taken and calories burned, and may record where you go along the way. Like Santa Claus,...Read more

You have scheduled an appointment with a health care provider, but no matter how hard you try, no one seems to be able to reliably tell you how much that visit will cost you. Will you have to pay US$20, $1,000 – or even more?

Patients are increasingly on the hook for health care costs through deductibles, co-pays and other fees. As ...Read more

A new federal rule will require water utilities across the country to pull millions of lead drinking water pipes out of the ground and replace them, at a cost of billions of dollars.

States, cities and water utilities agree that the lead pipes need to go to ensure safe water for residents. But they say they may struggle to do so in the 10-year ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I was diagnosed with COPD last year after struggling with multiple symptoms. I quit smoking over 10 years ago, but I'm dealing with the effects of it now. How can I best manage the symptoms and live as fully as possible with this condition?

ANSWER: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, is a leading cause of ...Read more