Consumers should brace themselves for increasing costs of yet another key component of most families’ budgets: the price of health insurance premiums. Even if Congress can’t get its act together to extend coronavirus pandemic-related subsidies for millions of Americans covered under Obamacare, insurers in individual marketplaces across 13 states and Washington, D.C., are looking to….
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Big shakeups under way in much-criticized U.S. health agencies
While most regular folks wouldn’t give a hill of beans about the organization of bureaucracies in Washington, D.C., frustrated taxpayers should be taking note of seismic rumblings about restructurings that are shaking some of the biggest, most powerful, and influential federal health agencies. Biden Administration officials, in one of their notable moves, have announced that….
Continue ReadingSuperbug deaths & antibiotic abuse surged during pandemic
With the coronavirus pandemic surging anew due to the highly infectious Omicron BA.5 variant, federal authorities reported recent data that should give Americans plenty of reason to heed public health warnings and avoid hospitalization if they possibly can. That’s in part because institutions, overwhelmed by the pandemic, have taken giant steps backward in preventing patients….
Continue ReadingPopular, costly knee injections little better than placebo, big study finds
Since the 1970s, some doctors have treated arthritic knees by injecting them with hyaluronic acid, a substance originally derived from the combs of roosters. Specialists have zealously promoted this therapy, costing patients a few hundred dollars a pop and repeated so widely that Medicare alone pays $300 million annually for it. Doctors argue it reduces….
Continue ReadingA posthumous diagnosis forces soccer to reconsider risk of head harms
In 2015, public attention galvanized around the significant risks of head trauma and the sport of football with the disclosure that Andre Waters, 44, a hard-hitting, onetime Philadelphia Eagles player, had been diagnosed after his suicide with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Has soccer — one of the most popular pastimes on the planet and….
Continue ReadingHealth insurers start to join hospitals in giant disclosure of data on prices
If patients can benefit from price transparency by hospitals, shouldn’t employers and health insurers post online what they are paying for medical services? Yes, say federal regulators, who started requiring this effective July 1. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has ordered parties that act as health payers to make public a wealth….
Continue ReadingFDA bans Juul vaping products and seeks to slash nicotine in cigarettes
Federal regulators have cracked down on Big Tobacco and its zealous, profit-seeking promotion of products that fuel some of the leading causes of preventable disease in this country: cigarette smoking and vaping. The federal Food and Drug Administration ordered the maker of Juul, a pioneer in pushing so-called e-cigarettes and vape flavorings on the young,….
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 ReadingHidden code leaks private data from hospitals and ‘pregnancy centers’
The kids may obsess about social media platforms. But just how much do patients want them to snoop into their most personal medical information, accessed due to hidden snippets of computer code embedded on the sites of some of the nation’s biggest and most respected hospitals, as well as facilities purportedly dealing with women’s reproductive….
Continue ReadingU.S. finds high risks in tally of wrecks involving self-driving vehicles
Though it may be tempting for owners of and passengers in expensive, high-tech vehicles to leave the driving to increasingly smarter cars, Americans still must beware of lethal, injurious shortcomings in this new autonomous age. In just 10 recent months, federal officials say, almost “400 crashes in the United States … involved cars using advanced….
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