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When Penelope Wingard’s cancer went into remission, she lost her Medicaid coverage in North Carolina. Without insurance, the debts piled up for her follow-up care. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get ahead of it.
In 2020, diabetes and covid-19 landed David Zipprich in the hospital three times. Even with insurance, he was inundated with bills, debt notices, and calls from collectors.
Monica Reed was the first in her family to own a home and has lived “a frugal kind of life.” Cancer treatment left her with almost $10,000 in debt, pushing her to the edge financially.
Jeff and Kareen King joined a medical cost-sharing plan advertised as a “refreshing non-insurance approach” to paying for health care. It had a big proviso: Preexisting conditions like Jeff’s heart condition were not fully covered for the first two years. He needed heart surgery after just 16 months.
An examination of billing policies and practices at more than 500 hospitals across the country shows widespread reliance on aggressive collection tactics.
Pediatric cases of RSV and flu have families crowding into ERs, as health systems juggle staff shortages. In Michigan, only 10 out of 130 hospitals have a pediatric ICU.
New reductions in Medicare payments in 2023 will drive more doctors away from accepting Medicare patients, physicians say. They are again pushing back on efforts largely designed to control government spending.
Across the country, there are no consistent requirements for the officials who investigate suspicious and unexpected deaths. Some have no medical training, others are doctors trained in forensic pathology. Washington, California, Illinois, and Georgia are among the states that have recently attempted to make changes — with mixed success.
Many colleges require students to have health insurance coverage, and the college option can be costly. In addition, some schools mandate that students pay a fee to cover health services on campus.
A complaint was filed with the state against an addiction treatment provider that wants to use rewards — an effective but largely unregulated tool — to help people stay in recovery.
Research shows offering clean syringes to people who misuse IV drugs is effective in combating the spread of HIV. But an epidemiologist and advocates say state and local officials in West Virginia, home to one of the worst HIV outbreaks in recent years, have taken measures that render syringe exchange less accessible.
In a city plagued by gun violence, Mykael Ash is turning ammunition into art. Ash, who lives in East St. Louis, Illinois, frequently walks through parts of the city where bullet shells aren’t hard to find. The shell casings represent a cycle of inequality, Ash says, and the art he makes with it serves as a call to action.
Since 2017, Medicaid expansion has been adopted in seven states where a question was placed directly on the ballot. But campaign leaders say that strategy may not work in Florida and Wyoming, where Republican opposition remains strong.
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
While supporters cheer the PASTEUR Act as an essential strategy to stem the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, critics call it a multibillion-dollar giveaway to Big Pharma.
Top negotiators in Congress have agreed to a framework for government spending into next year, but there are details to iron out before a vote — such as the scheduled Medicare payment cuts that have providers worried. Also, the Biden administration reopens its program allowing Americans to request free covid-19 home tests, as hopes for pandemic preparedness measures from Congress dim. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rebecca Adams of KHN join KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these topics and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
After almost every mass shooting, a debate is renewed over whether to publish the photos of the carnage the guns have inflicted.
Hospitals have depended on travel nurses to fill shifts, especially during covid surges. Now some larger systems, reeling from high contract labor costs, have created staffing units, aiming to lure nurses who want more work flexibility and better pay than staff RNs get.
Colorado has joined Florida, New Hampshire, and New Mexico in seeking federal permission to import prescription drugs from Canada. President Joe Biden endorsed the approach in his 2020 campaign but has yet to approve any state plan.
Coal mining ended in Germany’s Saarland a decade ago, but the transition away from coal has been smoother than in West Virginia, which has more medical debt than any state in America.
