KHN Weekly: 10/29/21
How Billing Turns a Routine Birth Into a High-Cost Emergency
Rae Ellen Bichell
“Obstetrical emergency departments” are a new feature in some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask the parents of Baby Gus.
Pharma Campaign Cash Delivered to Key Lawmakers With Surgical Precision
Victoria Knight and Rachana Pradhan and Elizabeth Lucas
With an eye to shutting down Medicare drug price negotiations, drug companies and their lobbying groups gave roughly $1.6 million in the first six months of 2021, with Democrats edging closer than they have in a decade to Republicans’ total haul.
Pharma Cash to Congress
Elizabeth Lucas and KFF Health News Staff
A KFF Health News database tracks campaign donations from drugmakers over the past 10 years.
Medicare Punishes 2,499 Hospitals for High Readmissions
Jordan Rau
The federal government’s hospital penalty program finishes its first decade by lowering payments to nearly half the nation’s hospitals for readmitting too many Medicare patients within a month. Penalties, though often small, are credited with helping reduce the number of patients returning for another Medicare stay within 30 days.
Look Up Your Hospital: Is It Being Penalized by Medicare?
Jordan Rau
Each year, Medicare punishes hospitals that have high rates of readmissions and high rates of infections and patient injuries. Check out which hospitals have been penalized.
In Maine, Vaccine Mandate for EMTs Stresses Small-Town Ambulance Crews
Patty Wight, Maine Public Radio
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it's lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can't function if even just a few people quit.
Medicare Plans’ ‘Free’ Dental, Vision, Hearing Benefits Come at a Cost
Phil Galewitz
The ads for supplemental Medicare Advantage plans describe vision and dental benefits, even grocery discounts and food deliveries. But look at the fine print.
3 States Limit Nursing Home Profits in Bid to Improve Care
Susan Jaffe
Following the devastating impact of covid-19 on nursing homes, state lawmakers want to be sure that government and private payments primarily go to improve care and staffing.
Confronting Ageism in Health Care: A Conversation for Patients, Caregivers and Clinicians
A frank, practical and empowering conversation about this pervasive, systemic problem of bias, discrimination or stereotyping based on age.
Direct Primary Care, With a Touch of Robin Hood
Bernard J. Wolfson and Heidi de Marco
Some doctors, sick of mainstream health care’s red tape, are finding refuge in practices that combine concierge medicine with charity care.
Analysis: A Procedure That Cost $1,775 in New York Was $350 in Maryland. Here’s Why.
Elisabeth Rosenthal
The state’s unique health system controls what hospitals can charge for services.
Democrats’ Plans to Expand Medicare Benefits May Pinch Advantage Plans’ Funding
Michelle Andrews
As lawmakers weigh new spending provisions to cover dental, hearing and vision services for Medicare beneficiaries, a group supporting Medicare Advantage plans is airing commercials that raise concerns about the funding for those private plans.
Fresh Faces, Fewer Tools: Meet the New Bosses Fighting Covid
Nick Ehli
Local health officials who quit or were forced out during the pandemic have been replaced by people who must face an increasingly polarized public with fewer powers than their predecessors.
Understaffed State Psychiatric Facilities Leave Mental Health Patients in Limbo
Andy Miller
The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.
ERs Are Swamped With Seriously Ill Patients, Although Many Don’t Have Covid
Kate Wells, Michigan Public
Certain patients who couldn't get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
‘Down to My Last Diaper’: The Anxiety of Parenting in Poverty
Jenny Gold
Diapers are a baby essential, but no federal program helps families cover their considerable cost. Jennifer Randles, a professor of sociology at Fresno State in California, spoke with KHN about her novel research exploring the outsize role “diaper math” plays in the lives of low-income moms.
Texas Abortion Law Gets Speedy High-Court Hearing Monday
Julie Rovner
The Supreme Court justices, who accepted the case only 10 days before the arguments will be made, may skirt the issue of abortion and concentrate instead on the legality of the law’s unusual tack to let private citizens enforce it.
‘No Mercy’ Bonus Episodes: More From Fort Scott, Kansas
Sarah Jane Tribble
Check out the latest bonus episodes from the award-winning "Where It Hurts" podcast.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Social-Spending ‘Framework’ Pulls Back on Key Health Pledges
President Joe Biden unveiled a compromise “Build Back Better” framework shortly before taking off for key meetings in Europe, but it’s unclear whether the framework can win the votes of all Democrats in the House and Senate, and it leaves out some of the party’s health priorities, notably significant provisions to lower prescription drug prices. Meanwhile, younger children may soon be eligible for covid vaccines. Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet and Rachana Pradhan of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
What’s Scarier Than Covid? Halloween Health Haikus
A huge thank you to our readers who participated in our third annual KHN Halloween Haiku Contest. Based on a review by our expert panel of judges, we unmask the winner and serve a sampling of finalists.
“Este es el último pañal que me queda”: la ansiedad de ser padres en la pobreza
Jenny Gold
Una de cada tres familias estadounidenses no puede pagar por suficientes pañales para mantener a sus bebés y niños pequeños limpios, secos y saludables, según la National Diaper Bank Network. Para muchos padres, eso lleva a elecciones desgarradoras: ¿pañales, comida o renta?