Marilyn Bartlett, the director administrator of Montana's Health Care and Benefits Division, recalls thinking "holy cow" when she got an urgent directive from state legislators in late 2014: "You have to get these costs under control, or else."

Increasing health care costs in the state workers' health plan were helping hold down workers' wages....Read more

America's medical and public health organizations have been unanimous in their criticism of the Trump administration's practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border. President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the policy on Wednesday, after U.S. border officials placed more than 2,300 children in ...Read more

Employees of small businesses and self-employed workers may soon be able to get cheaper health insurance under a new federal rule unveiled Tuesday, though critics warn coverage might not be comprehensive and could leave other consumers paying higher prices.

The rule expands the use of association health plans, in which small businesses, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- In a bid to revive the Republican effort to roll back the Affordable Care Act, a group of leading conservative health care advocates is proposing a new strategy to overhaul the law.

The plan -- which is outlined in a seven-page blueprint unveiled Tuesday --faces long odds on Capitol Hill, where GOP leaders remain wary of reopening...Read more

The number of babies born hooked on their mothers' opioids has been soaring for almost two decades, yet experts still are not sure whether morphine or methadone is best to gradually break the infants' drug dependence.

A rigorous new government-funded study has found that methadone has a slight advantage over morphine, modestly reducing babies' ...Read more

As teacher strikes flared this spring in more than half a dozen states, from West Virginia to Arizona, protesters bemoaned stagnant salaries, overcrowded classrooms and a lack of basic supplies like textbooks and computers.

But often missing from hand-scrawled placards and fiery speeches was an issue that has contributed greatly to the ...Read more

If my 3-year-old goes more than two hours without a snack, he turns into a screaming, hangry monster. And if we're being honest, so do I.

But Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan, which ended Thursday, and they don't all transform into the Hulk for a month.

UNC researchers have been studying hunger and anger and have found that ...Read more

Dear Mayo Clinic: Is juicing as healthy as some proclaim, or are some nutrients lost in the process?

A: Juicing -- extracting the juice from fresh fruits and vegetables -- can be a good way to add nutrients to your diet. If you struggle to eat the recommended five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day, juicing can help you get ...Read more

Psychedelic drugs' mind-expanding properties may be rooted in their ability to prompt neurons to branch out and create new connections with other brain cells, new research has found.

This discovery may explain why psychedelic drugs appear to be a valuable treatment for a wide range of psychiatric diseases, scientists said.

In test tubes as ...Read more

California's nonprofit hospitals are providing sharply less free and reduced-cost medical care than they did a few years ago, raising questions about the role and obligations of those institutions in the age of Obamacare.

About 170 nonprofit general acute hospitals provided $651 million of charity care in 2016, down from $985 million in 2011, ...Read more

ATLANTA -- It's no secret that cupcakes in the break room provide little nutrition. But a new report reveals that many Americans might be overindulging in snacks.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently conducted a study, presented at a American Society for Nutrition meeting, to determine how many unhealthy ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho -- For years Democrats ran from the health care issue as though it were a heap of flaming rubble, which, politically speaking, it was.

Passage of the Affordable Care Act cost them control of Congress, gave rise to the upstart tea party movement and helped install Donald Trump in the White House.

But polls show support for the law ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Like many proud parents, Pam Olson of Woodbury, Minn., had a good cry watching her daughter Bridget graduate from college recently.

Unlike many parents, however, her tears carried added weight. She once doubted she'd see this happy day.

At 39, Olson was found to have colon cancer. Within weeks, she'd had surgery to remove part ...Read more