Most Americans get their health insurance through their jobs, and that coverage continues to increase in cost with the average annual premiums in 2021 exceeding $22,200 for families and $7,700 for individuals — a 4% rise from 2020. The price increases affecting 155 million non-elderly people with employer-provided coverage, as detailed in the annual Kaiser….
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Biden nominates Robert Califf to reprise his Obama-era role as FDA chief
Robert Califf, a cardiologist and President Biden’s “new” nominee to head the federal Food and Drug Administration, is a familiar face around the agency and Washington, D.C. Califf served as the FDA commissioner before — winning U.S. Senate confirmation and holding the important post for the last year of the Obama presidency. He is 70….
Continue Reading$1 trillion invested in ‘infrastructure’ can boost U.S. health and well-being
Although the chattering classes may have beat the term infrastructure into a hoary cliché, regular folks may see major benefits over time to their health and well-being from the Biden Administration’s finally passed, bipartisan $1 trillion bill that invests desperately needed money into the nation’s roads, highways, bridges, and more. The law will send a….
Continue ReadingFDA advances plan for cheaper, easier, more convenient hearing aids
Millions of Americans soon may be able to buy much cheaper devices to help them with their mild to moderate hearing loss and avoid costly hearing aids prescribed by specialists. It took far too long for this big step to occur, and consumers won’t see its full benefits for a bit still. But the Food….
Continue ReadingWill Congress bog down or will it act on people’s health and other needs?
It may be tempting to get caught up in cynical views of congressional lawmaking, budgeting, and spending — seeing it as gross “sausage making” or in sporting “who wins and who loses” score-keeping. But for anyone who believes that health care in the wealthiest nation in the world ought to be a right and not….
Continue ReadingWarnings rise that nation’s younger people are far sicker than they should be
Lights are flashing and alarms are blaring. A health care nightmare is growing before us and threatens the future of the nation: Younger people — those under age 40 or even age 50 — are sicker than they should be, and their conditions are worsening, not improving, especially with the destructive coronavirus pandemic. An independent….
Continue ReadingNonprofit hospitals, awash in cash, seek yet higher returns as health care VCs
In an unbelievable fiscal oasis surrounding a spot that a newspaper columnist dubbed Baghdad by the Bay, slick dudes who call themselves VCs (as in venture capitalists) scurry around carrying the equivalent of magic wands and sacks of money in pursuit of elusive unicorns — rare start-up enterprises that Wall Street will value at $1….
Continue ReadingSpiking deaths, health crises, and amputations: Diabetes is ‘out of control’
More than 100,000 people in this country died last year due to diabetes. That’s 17% more than the year before. And in younger age groups, it’s even worse: deaths from diabetes climbed 29% last year among those ages 25-44, federal data show. The figures should raise huge alarms that diabetes, as exposed by the coronavirus….
Continue ReadingU.S. outspends other nations by far on health care but lags badly in outcomes
The U.S. health care system, again, ranks last among 11 high-income countries — the seventh such time it trailed its peers since a leading, independent nonprofit conducted its first study in 2004. The Commonwealth Fund, in its latest published research, says it examined 71 different measures to study health systems in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the….
Continue Reading$140 billion in medical debt slams patients, especially the poor and uninsured
A scandal of the U.S. health system may be far worse than imagined, with the medical debt sold to collection agencies alone amounting to a staggering $140 billion. The $140 billion estimate came from researchers who published in a medical journal and found that such unpaid sums had increased significantly from an $84 billion calculation….
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