Anna Gorman

Many Native Americans rely entirely on free care from the financially strapped Indian Health Service. Advocates say signing up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act can broaden their choices.

Until recently, nurses at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Hospital had to maneuver through a maze of wheelchairs, beds, boxes and lights to find surgical supplies in the equipment closet for the operating rooms.

But as public hospitals like Harbor-UCLA try to cut costs and make patients happier, administrators have turned ...

At the New Jalisco Bar in downtown Los Angeles, a drag show featuring dancers dressed in sequined leotards and feathered headdresses draws a crowd on a Friday night, most of them gay Latino men.

Inside the bar and out, three health workers chat with customers, casually asking questions: Do you ...

Terri Anderson signed up for California's Medicaid program earlier this year, hoping she'd finally get treatment for her high blood pressure. But the insurer operating her Medicaid plan assigned the 57-year-old to a doctor across town from her Riverside, Calif., home and she couldn't get there.

"It was just too ...

Dan Swangard knows what death looks like.

As a physician, he has seen patients die in hospitals, hooked to morphine drips and overcome with anxiety. He has watched death drag on for weeks or months as terrified relatives stand by helplessly.

Recently, however, his thoughts about how seriously ill people ...

Nobody looks forward to sitting in the waiting room. So some hospitals are trying to improve customer satisfaction by offering online appointments. The pitch: "Wait for the ER from home."