Healthcare Systems & Policy

 On Jan. 1, Californians in the state's Medicaid dental program will once again have full dental coverage. But the program's low rates mean many dentists won't see them.

The stopgap bill approved by Congress this week will extend funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program for a few more months. That's far from what the program's supporters were hoping for.

The use of crowdfunding to cover medical costs has grown rapidly in recent years. The trend provides insights into gaps in health coverage, but also poses some problems health reporters should keep in mind.

A reporter set out to do a set of stories on the difficulties Merced County residents already faced in accessing care. Then, eight health clinics serving Medicaid patients in the county closed.

The closure was a big blow for Warren County, an area of the state considered a primary care desert, where doctors are few and patients are often forced to go without health care.

Community clinics in Los Angeles know they have to find new ways to get at the social factors that ultimately shape health if they're going to make a real difference in their patients' lives.

Earlier this week, Harvard researchers released a study that makes a downright gloomy prediction: Nearly six in 10 of today’s children will be obese by age 35, if current trends continue.

While the drug’s $94,500 cost puts it out of reach of the uninsured patients who use the Florida clinic, the drug’s maker provides it for free to qualified, low-income patients.

The numbers are eye-popping: $25,000 MRIs, the $1,000-a-day hepatitis B drug, $629 for an ER visit that only delivered a Band-Aid. As leading health care economists bluntly put it in a famous research paper, “It’s the prices stupid.” Experts increasingly point to the high cost of care in America — n

UC Irvine recently announced a $200 million gift to establish a new college of integrative medicine. The press coverage revealed a long-running bias from the media toward alternative therapies, one supporter argues.