The Biden Administration has tackled the “family glitch” in Obamacare, issuing new eligibility rules that will open up more affordable health insurance for many more poor, working poor, and middle-class Americans who otherwise might struggle to pay for coverage, even as provided by their employers. This change in health care regulation is taking effect, even….
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Big hospitals’ buck-raking schemes exploit poor and pile on medical debt
Big hospitals and hospital chains that enjoy the financial and reputational benefits of nonprofit or charitable status have taken major fire for maximizing profits while piling on patients’ crushing medical debt and exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable of the injured and sick. Medical economists, in recent times, have zeroed in on hospitals and their….
Continue ReadingAppellate judges zero in on corporate twists of bankruptcy shield
Federal appeals judges have expressed skepticism about the scheming by Big Pharma and other big corporations to twist U.S. bankruptcy laws to let wealthy, powerful defendants shield themselves from major claims of harms filed by plaintiffs seeking justice in civil courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia has been asked….
Continue ReadingWhen claims of harms rise, more corporations are diving into bankruptcy
They were a tortured part of the opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis. They have become a painful aspect of the push to hold nursing home owners and operators accountable for the shambolic response to the coronavirus pandemic. And they soon may be an obstacle to military veterans’ attempts to get justice for defective devices….
Continue ReadingU.S. nears next health insurance cliff with affordability crisis growing
Even as Congress lumbers into creating the next crisis for millions of Americans and whether they can access and afford health insurance, the giant, built-in flaws in the current coverage system keep sending far too many patients and their loved ones into a financial morass with which politicians and policymakers refuse to reckon. Successive Democratic….
Continue ReadingFinancial punishment is now a built-in aspect of U.S. health care system
The sky-high and relentlessly rising cost of U.S. health care is slamming patients, ensnaring them in pricey over-testing, over-diagnosing, and over-treatment. It is pounding them with pervasive, pernicious, and unacceptable medical debt. The crushing burden of expensive health care is leaving consumers going without as they also struggle now with soaring prices for gas, food, and….
Continue ReadingGood news for patients on credit reports and maybe that Medicare hike
Patients battered by sky-high health care costs are getting a bit of promising news: One set of federal regulators may have jawboned the leading credit reporting agencies to deal better with how they tell lenders about individuals’ medical debt and its significance for their hiring, renting, borrowing, and more. And another set of federal regulators….
Continue ReadingMedical debt mires millions in a flood of red ink
Medical debt, one of the most shameful aspects of the U.S. health care system, has only become more so in recent times, drowning patients in an ever-rising flood of red ink now climbing past $195 billion. The money owed by millions of Americans to doctors, hospitals, labs, Big Pharma and others in healthcare and big….
Continue ReadingBillionaire clan assailed as ‘scum of earth’ in unusual opioids hearing
Three members of a plutocratic clan finally got a direct, bitter earful from those who suffered grievous harms from the opioid crisis which was fostered, critics say, by their family business — Purdue Pharmaceutical and its powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin. As part of prospective $10 billion settlement of thousands of lawsuits by states, counties, cities,….
Continue ReadingPlutocrats up the ante by a few billion to settle a sorry opioids saga
A plutocratic clan has upped its ante by $1.5 billion in an apparently successful bet that using bankruptcy courts, mediation, and offering to settle giant claims in the opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis will be cheaper and less risky than battling on with thousands of plaintiffs seeking billions of dollars more. Members of the….
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