When Health Insurance Costs More Than the Mortgage
As health care costs skyrocket and federal lawmakers pull back help on insurance premiums, more middle-income families are facing tough choices on health care.
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As health care costs skyrocket and federal lawmakers pull back help on insurance premiums, more middle-income families are facing tough choices on health care.
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A Wisconsin retiree with glaucoma needed her eyes examined. Her Medicare Advantage plan from UnitedHealthcare listed her optometrist’s clinic as in-network, but she learned the hard way that a clinic can be in-network and out-of-network at the same time.
Some hospitals are registering patients detained by federal immigration officers under pseudonyms and prohibiting staff from contacting family members. Attorneys and health care workers say the practices facilitate rights violations and create ethical concerns. Hospitals say they’re trying to protect patients.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is not just roiling politics but also directly affecting the provision of health care, medical groups say. Meanwhile, in Washington, federal spending bills have been stalled by the fight over immigration enforcement funding after the shooting death of a second person in Minneapolis this month. Maya Goldman of Axios, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more.
Proposed Trump administration changes to federal Medicare Advantage payments would stop health insurers from mining patient data for extra medical diagnoses that generate more bills to taxpayers even without treatment.
The federal government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was supposed to help patients with their medical bills while protecting vaccine supply. But allies of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are routinely transferring cases from that program to launch lawsuits against drugmakers.
In Georgia, a high number of callers to the 988 crisis line hang up or disconnect before reaching a counselor. Many other calls are transferred out of state.
Patients say they find AI summaries of doctor visits user-friendly, but it’s not clear if their appointments are improving. In any case, doctors appear to be embracing the high-tech innovation.
Studies increasingly offer insights into the health risks and burdens faced by people who have had covid infections. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has narrowed covid vaccine recommendations and cut research.
This installment of InvestigateTV and KFF Health News’ “Costly Care” series explores how administrative errors can leave patients on the hook for bills they shouldn’t owe — sometimes with few options to correct a problem they didn’t create.
“An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann talks with the founder of the charity-care nonprofit Dollar For about how it helped eliminate $55 million in medical bills last year.
Breakups between insurers and health systems, on top of plan cuts, left more than 3.7 million Medicare Advantage enrollees facing a tough choice last year: find new insurance or new doctors. But hospital systems say their Advantage plans can avert such upheaval, giving patients peace of mind.
KFF Health News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Two Trump administration regulatory rollbacks affect nursing home staffing and home care workers, and a new AI experiment in Medicare has alarmed eldercare advocates and congressional Democrats.
With abortions still on the rise nationwide despite widespread bans, curtailing the use of pregnancy-terminating medication is a top priority for abortion opponents — and they’re frustrated that the Trump administration isn’t doing more to limit its use.
Lawmakers appear on the brink of passing a spending bill for the Department of Health and Human Services and a bipartisan health policy bill delayed for over a year. But the outlook is bleaker for the health care outline released by President Trump last week. Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, and Paige Winfield Cunningham of The Washington Post join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss those stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel to discuss his new book, “Eat Your Ice Cream.”
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More than a quarter of the agricultural workforce purchases health insurance through the individual marketplace, a much larger share than the overall percentage of U.S. adults. After a tough year for farmers, the loss of enhanced ACA subsidies is putting health insurance out of reach for many.
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