A Tale Of Two CT Scanners — One Richer, One Poorer
Why is the price of a CT scan 33 times higher in an hospital emergency room than in an outpatient imaging center just down the street?
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Why is the price of a CT scan 33 times higher in an hospital emergency room than in an outpatient imaging center just down the street?
Experts say the two-year expansion of subsidies for most people who buy insurance through the government exchanges would be among the most significant changes to the affordability of private insurance since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
After a bruising confirmation process, Xavier Becerra was sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services this week. The Senate also confirmed the nominations of former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to return to the post he held in the Obama administration, and former Pennsylvania health secretary Rachel Levine as assistant secretary for health. Levine is the first openly transgender person to receive Senate confirmation. Meanwhile, questions continue to swirl around the AstraZeneca covid vaccine, which some public health experts worry will create more hesitancy toward other vaccines.
Presidential historians say that Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office — a somewhat arbitrary but frequently cited milestone — have included an above-average number of major accomplishments.
Podcast panelists discuss a range of health policy developments, from the latest in the covid vaccination effort to the HHS budget, among other things.
At least 5,800 people have fallen ill or tested positive for covid two weeks or more after being fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. “I now tell everyone, including my colleagues, not to let their guard down."
Eager to control costs, health systems and insurers are trying to address patients’ social needs such as food insecurity, transportation and housing. Yet, after years of testing, there’s slim evidence these efforts pay off.
Health providers are seeing the consequences of pandemic-delayed preventive and emergency care, from longer hospital stays to more root canals.
Many state Medicaid programs pay out-of-state providers much less than in-state facilities, often making it hard for families with medically complex children to get the care they seek.
A woman with foot pain was floored by the high cost of titanium screws used in her surgery. “Unless the metal [was] mined on an asteroid, I do not know why it should cost that amount,” she says.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs has allowed providers to continue operating despite repeated violations and harm to clients.
The measures would impose taxes on increases in the price of drugs that don’t reflect improved clinical value and set the rates paid by state-run and commercial health plans to a benchmark based on prices in Canada.
Peace Arch Park on the U.S.-Canadian border has become a rare place where families and friends on either side of the border can see one another in person. But it raises questions on covid safety as the two countries handle the pandemic differently.
A Trump administration Medicare rule will push some hospital patients into a Catch-22: The government says several hundred procedures no longer need to be done in a hospital, but it did not approve them to be performed elsewhere. So patients will still need to use a hospital while not officially admitted — and may be charged more out-of-pocket for the care.
All agree that covid vaccines are urgently needed to stop the pandemic, but simply waiving patents fails to provide technological know-how and address supply chain challenges.
Progressive and conservative Democratic lawmakers, as well as President Joe Biden, are in favor of authorizing federal officials to negotiate with drugmakers over what Medicare pays for at least some of the most expensive brand-name drugs and to base those prices on the drugs’ clinical benefits. Such a measure could put Republicans in the uncomfortable position of opposing an idea that most voters from both parties generally support.
Even with extra federal dollars and a flush budget, Show Me State Republicans are putting up roadblocks to the voter-approved constitutional amendment that would give 275,000 people health insurance.
More than 200,000 doses of covid vaccine have gone to waste since December, KHN has learned. Two national pharmacy chains account for most of it.
The debate begins with the covid death tallies. But the issues go beyond basic numbers.
The Florida governor considers the pushback he received from the online video platform to be “Orwellian.” But the scientists featured at the event made specific statements YouTube deemed as “misinformation,” at odds with current public health recommendations for controlling the spread of the covid virus.
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