Doctors, hospitals, health insurers, and Big Pharma have become so abusive to patients with their billing and pricing that they may have accomplished what many consider a political impossibility ̶ angering Democrats and Republicans in Congress as well as the White House, pushing them all toward bipartisan legislation and executive actions. Don’t bet on the….
Continue ReadingBANKRUPTCY
Hospitals rip employer health plans with prices up to 3 times what Uncle Sam pays
Big businesses, which beat on their employees to be more cost-conscious, efficient, and productive, may need to take a page out of their own books if they hope to better control the soaring health care costs that they’re also shoving off onto their workers. That’s a key takeaway from new research by the independent, nonprofit….
Continue ReadingAmericans rely on health coverage from work. It’s not getting the job done.
Republicans got their heads handed to them in the midterms because they bungled a decade of efforts to eliminate public options on health insurance, the House minority leader has conceded. But he and other lawmakers, as well as corporate bosses, may face greater political fallout for failing to deal with a bigger health coverage nightmare for ….
Continue ReadingThe downside of crowd-funding medical treatments for desperate patients
Although the sky-high cost of providing medical care to sick or injured friends and loved ones might seem good reason to encourage community altruism to the nth degree, new technologies that have made it easy, fast, and convenient to “crowd source” online donations also may be sending well-intentioned gifts to dubious and dangerous types of….
Continue ReadingWill voters recall what Trump and GOP do on health, not just what they say?
As voters make up their minds about this fall’s mid-term races, they may wish to burn into their memories how the Trump Administration has dealt, so far, and especially in recent days, with government social programs that have huge effects on Americans’ health and lives. Take, for example, the late-week, late night announcement by the….
Continue ReadingDistrict tests an alternative answer to what really ails too many 911 callers
Residents of the nation’s capital will participate in a public health test every time they pick up the phone to dial 911 for help. How their calls get answered says a lot about common sense, as well as the availability and affordability of medical services in Washington and the nation. National Public Radio reported that….
Continue ReadingSick and injured battered by costs of hospitalization, long-term care, bad jobs
Illness and accidents batter and beggar Americans worse than many of us realize. New studies show it’s not just the cost of medical services but also long-term care and loss of jobs staggering the lives and finances of too many. Margot Sanger-Katz, writing in the data-driven New York Times column, “The Upshot,” reported that hospitalization….
Continue ReadingWhen big money floods into health care, the results can be crazy and corrosive
With Americans spending more than $3 trillion annually on health care, the corrosive and crazy effects of all that big money can become almost common place. Even still, hospitals, doctors, and Big Pharma still manage to come up with plenty of, Aw, really, c’mon kinds of financial situations. Recent news reports, for example, have focused….
Continue ReadingWill partisan assault on Obamacare also rack up costs of car insurance?
Although Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration may not want to stop their relentless assault on the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, there may be other reasons to persuade them to do so. Researchers at the nonpartisan, not-for-profit RAND Corp., for example, have looked at existing studies and data and asked if the recent GOP….
Continue ReadingThe U.S. way? Rich reap good health, while poor toil in sickness
Here’s something that many Americans likely would want to think twice about letting happen: Should good health and long lives be just another of the spoils reserved to the rich? Vox, a news and information site, has posted a provocative dig into national data on longevity — a measure that has raised experts’ concern with….
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