Is it time for a glimmer of optimism about reducing at least one unacceptably high health care cost? Say hear, hear then, to the federal Food and Drug Administration’s removing the last regulatory block to consumers with mild to moderate hearing loss buying cheaper, easier to access, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids — potentially as soon….
Continue ReadingHealth Care Reform
Rollout will take time for Democrats’ big act on health, climate and taxes
President Biden and congressional Democrats have embarked on a major political experiment, testing the public’s willingness to delay gratification on seeing big benefits of a landmark measure with important elements to improve their health and wellbeing. Is it more persuasive to regular folks that one political party is trying to tackle huge problems, or will relentless….
Continue ReadingBig 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 ReadingAs medical costs, especially for cancer, slam patients, where’s Congress?
While Congress seems paralyzed or, at best, willing to shrink significantly its efforts to help Americans deal with the punishing costs of care in the U.S. medical system, could federal lawmakers be confronted at the same time with more compelling evidence about the need for aggressive, not timid, action? Do beleaguered constituents need to barrage….
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 ReadingSenators kill big plan to modernize VA care but offer no alternatives
One of the nation’s largest health care systems had its ambitious plans to reshape itself for the 21st century torpedoed by a dozen members of the U.S. Senate, with taxpayers and veterans left in the lurch with great uncertainty about the future medical care for those who valiantly have served this country. Just a few….
Continue ReadingU.S. hits hospitals with a million reasons to heed price-disclosure rule
Federal officials will fine two Georgia hospitals, both in the same health system, a total of more than $1 million for failing to post online legally required pricing information. Patient advocates and the former administration hoped this incremental disclosure would help check ever-rising health care costs and give consumers important data to make better choices….
Continue ReadingAn advanced democracy can’t shrug at mass deaths, especially kid killings
Experts fear the country is veering dangerously into a widespread acceptance of mass death as just a regular part of life — not only by moving on with little more than faint acknowledgement of more than 1 million coronavirus pandemic fatalities but also with a tragic resignation about fatal shootings at schools, groceries, movie theaters, and….
Continue ReadingNursing homes in desperate need of giant overhaul, experts say
The nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are in dire need of drastic overhaul to dramatically improve the quality and safety of their treatment of the aged, sick, and disabled. They too often now get what one expert has described as “ineffective, inefficient, inequitable, fragmented, and unsustainable” care. To repair the glaring, longstanding….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma donates big to GOP lawmakers as drug costs keep rising
While regular folks howl about the need to slash skyrocketing prescription drug costs, Big Pharma is showering lawmakers on Capitol Hill with campaign contributions and favoring Republicans in the House and Senate who show political promise — and an aversion to efforts to ensure the affordability of medications for the sick. The crushing costs of drugs….
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