InsuranceCoverage&Costs050621

After Accident, Patient Crashes Into $700,000 Bill for Spine Surgery
By Julie Appleby Generous personal injury coverage on your car policy may not be enough to cover medical bills. Patients can get financially blindsided when auto insurance and health insurance policies differ.

Watch: What Happens When Car and Health Insurance Collide
KHN Editor-in-Chief Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal helps accident victims avoid pitfalls in seeking medical care — a conundrum profiled in KHN-NPR's most recent Bill of the Month installment.

Biden Seeks $400 Billion to Buttress Long-Term Care. A Look at What’s at Stake.
By Judith Graham Long-term care options are expensive and often out of reach for seniors and people with disabilities. The president has proposed a massive infusion of federal funding for home and community-based health services that advocates say will go a long way toward helping individuals and families.

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: 100 Days of Health Policy
It’s 100 days into Joe Biden’s presidency and a surprisingly large number of health policies have been announced. But health is notably absent from the administration’s $1.8 trillion spending plan for American families, making it unclear how much more will get done this year. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosens its mask-wearing recommendations for those who have been vaccinated, but the new rules are confusing. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Mary Ellen McIntire of CQ Roll Call and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, Rovner interviews KHN’s Julie Appleby, who reported the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month” episode.

Public Health Experts Worry About Boom-Bust Cycle of Support
By Michelle R. Smith, The Associated Press and Lauren Weber and Hannah Recht Congress has poured tens of billions of dollars into public health since last year. While health officials who have juggled bare-bones budgets for years are grateful for the money, they worry it will soon dry up, just as it has after previous crises such as 9/11, SARS and Ebola. Meanwhile, they continue to cope with an exodus from the field amid political pressure and exhaustion that meant 1 in 6 Americans lost their local health department leader.

‘Explained by KHN’: Health Insurance Help in Covid Relief Law
By Emmarie Huetteman In this edition of “Explained by KHN” Emmarie Huetteman covers how the $1.9 trillion covid relief law will make health insurance coverage significantly more affordable for millions of people.

Hit by Higher Prices for Gear, Doctors and Dentists Want Insurers to Pay
By Rachel Bluth The costs of personal protective equipment and disinfecting offices while seeing fewer patients have some doctors and dentists demanding that insurance companies step up.

Covered California Says Health Insurance Just Got Too Cheap to Ignore
By Bernard J. Wolfson Californians who passed up health coverage in the past may be pleasantly surprised by the lower prices available thanks to the new federal relief act.

What a Difference a Year Makes in Colorado’s Case for a Public Option Plan
By Markian Hawryluk Before the pandemic, Colorado was building momentum to pass what’s known as a “public option” health plan that would lower insurance premiums and force hospitals to accept lower payments. But now with hospitals and health care providers enjoying support as front-line heroes in the pandemic, state legislators have stripped the option from their bill.

Time to Say Goodbye to Some Insurers’ Waivers for Covid Treatment Fees
By Julie Appleby Insurers voluntarily set the charges aside earlier in the pandemic — but that means those same health plans can decide to reinstate them.

Humana Health Plan Overcharged Medicare by Nearly $200 Million, Federal Audit Finds
By Fred Schulte Medicare Advantage company may face record penalty over alleged billing errors.

Mental Health Services Wane as Insurers Appear to Skirt Parity Rules During Pandemic
By Emmarie Huetteman A report from the Government Accountability Office paints a picture of an already strained behavioral health system struggling after the pandemic struck to meet the treatment needs of millions of Americans with conditions like alcohol use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Big Investors Push Nursing Homes to Upgrade Care and Working Conditions
By Harris Meyer Responsible for 34% of the nation’s covid death toll, nursing homes and long-term care facilities get slammed by their investors and are told to change.

UVA Health Will Wipe Out Tens of Thousands of Lawsuits Against Patients
By Jay Hancock The Virginia hospital giant had already stopped suing patients with less than $107,000 in household income.

A Primary Care Physician for Every American, Science Panel Urges
By Noam N. Levey It’s time to consider primary care a “common good” akin to public education and shore up the foundation of the pandemic-battered U.S. health system, report says.

Democrats Disagree About How to Spend Potential Prescription Drug Windfall
By Julie Rovner After a year of uncharacteristically being on the same page when it comes to health care, Democratic lawmakers are at loggerheads about what to do next. Most agree the time is ripe to tackle high drug prices. But they divide over whether to take savings from that to move to a ‘Medicare for All’ insurance system, enhance the current Medicare program or strengthen benefits under the Affordable Care Act.

FDA Seeks a New Way to Review Old Drugs Without Causing Prices to Soar
By Harris Meyer A misguided federal program called the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which put the FDA’s stamp of approval on old drugs, led to higher prices. It’s scrapped. So now what?

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Picking Up the Pace of Undoing Trump Policies
The Biden administration has started to speed efforts to reverse health policies forged under Donald Trump. Most recently, the administration overturned a ban on fetal tissue research and canceled a last-minute extension of a Medicaid waiver for Texas. That latter move may delay the Senate confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) seeks to fight back. Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Rachel Cohrs of Stat and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Tras accidente de auto, paciente se estrella contra factura de $700,000 por cirugía de columna
By Julie Appleby La vida de Mark Gottlieb cambió en un instante cuando otro conductor chocó contra su auto. Se dañó cuatro vértebras de la parte superior de la columna vertebral y se destrozó seis dientes.

Covered California dice que el seguro de salud se ha vuelto demasiado barato como para ignorarlo
By Bernard J. Wolfson Una nueva ley federal podría hacer que sea mucho más barato comprar tu propio seguro si no tienes cobertura a través de un empleador o un programa del gobierno como Medicare o Medicaid.

Expertos en salud pública temen que los fondos desaparezcan cuando termine la pandemia
By Michelle R. Smith, The Associated Press and Lauren Weber and Hannah Recht El Congreso ha enviado miles de millones a los departamentos de salud para luchar contra covid. Pero históricamente, esta financiación se acaba cuando termina la emergencia sanitaria.