Read today’s Kaiser Health News
In other news:
About health insurance/insurers
Surging health costs bode ill for workers next year Interesting stats and sources for further reading.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
WHY PATIENTS ARE FILING MORE COMPLAINTS AGAINST HOSPITALS: According to the latest State Performance Standards System report from CMS, complaints against hospitals have surged by 79% over the past five years and topped 14,500 in fiscal year 2024. That increase is straining the oversight system designed to ensure hospital quality and safety, while also revealing frustrations from patients about their care experiences.
The report highlights how oversight gaps are contributing to dissatisfaction. State Survey Agencies, which investigate patient complaints and conduct recertification surveys, have had the same funding since 2015, even as their workload and use of resources has gone up.
60 health systems with strong finances FYI
About the public’s health
Why 1 in 6 U.S. parents are rejecting vaccine recommendations: The American parents who are choosing to skip or delay vaccines for their children are more likely to home-school their children, be White and very religious, identify as Republican or be under 35, according to a wide-ranging Washington Post-KFF poll that sheds new light on what drives vaccine hesitancy.
Comment: Read the whole article. The link is gifted from my account.
Five new members named to influential CDC vaccine advisory committee days ahead of key meeting: The new members are Dr. Catherine Stein, an epidemiologist and professor at Case Western Reserve University; Dr. Evelyn Griffin, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Dr. Hillary Blackburn, director of medication access and affordability at AscensionRx and the daughter-in-law of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee; Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist with For Hearts and Souls Free Medical Clinic in Hawaii; and Dr. Raymond Pollak, a surgeon and transplant immunobiologist.
See the article for their views on vaccines.
Heart disease, cancer deaths increased in 2024: CDC : Heart disease and cancer were again the leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2024, according to a CDC report published Sept. 10, which analyzed 99.9% of 2024 death records as of June 1, 2025.
At the same time, the overall death rate decreased by 3.8% to the lowest it’s been since 2020, from 750.5 per 100,000 in 2023 to 722 per 100,000 in 2024.