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The homeless tragedy in Portland, Oregon, now spills well beyond the downtown core, creating a crisis of conscience for a fiercely liberal city that has generously invested in homeless support services.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Marcus and Allyson Ward explain to “CBS Mornings” how the premature birth of their twins left them with $80,000 in medical debt. A new KHN-NPR investigation reveals they are among 100 million people afflicted financially by the U.S. health system.
The landmark Roe v. Wade decision could soon be overturned. Two Knoxville-based providers of reproductive health care wonder how — and if — they will continue to serve their patients.
Most of the dozen states that haven’t fully expanded eligibility for Medicaid have extended or plan to extend the postpartum coverage window for new mothers. That could mean improved maternal health, but it’s only part of the puzzle when it comes to reducing the number of preventable maternal deaths in the U.S.
As a Senate committee considered legislation to reauthorize the FDA’s user fee program, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul agreed on a proposed amendment related to importing drugs from Canada, the U.K., and other nations.
The wait is nearly over for parents of kids under 5 as a key advisory committee to the FDA recommends authorizing a covid-19 vaccine for the youngest children. Meanwhile, Congress is struggling to fill in the details of its gun control compromise, and, as the Supreme Court prepares to throw the question of abortion legality back to the states, the number of abortions has been rising. Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call 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.
One Chicago woman gave birth to twins 10 weeks prematurely, and the children needed extensive care. The medical bills topped out at around $80,000. Desperate, the parents loaded up credit cards, borrowed from relatives, and delayed repaying student loans.
Sherrie Foy had surgeries and medical complications that produced about $850,000 in bills. The Foys ended up declaring bankruptcy. “They took everything we had.”
Edy Adams had just graduated from college when she was sexually assaulted in 2013. After getting examined at an ER, she received calls from debt collectors for years over a $131 bill. “I was being haunted by this zombie bill.”
Joe Pitzo was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. After surgery, the bills topped $350,000. “This just took a major toll on my credit,” Joe said. “It went down to next to nothing.”
Even though one Colorado woman had health insurance, she was swamped with $250,000 in medical debt from surgeries for a twisted intestine. “It was five years of hell,” said her husband.
A small infection related to diabetes on one New York man’s foot set off a cascade of medical emergencies and financial struggles that his family is still struggling to cope with.
One seriously ill Arizona man was denied care because of past-due bills. His only choice was to go to the ER, where he was stuck with thousands of dollars of additional bills he couldn’t pay.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine takes a sweeping look at how heat — which can be a byproduct of air pollution and climate change — adversely affects people’s health, especially that of kids.
The U.S. health system now produces debt on a mass scale, a new investigation shows. Patients face gut-wrenching sacrifices.
People talk about the sacrifices they made when health care forced them into debt.
In carrying out the federal covid-19 “test-to-treat” initiative, California is targeting the uninsured by outfitting 138 testing sites with screenings for free antiviral drugs. But as of mid-June, fewer than 800 people had been prescribed the medicines. And two-thirds of those undergoing screenings are insured.
Today, debt from medical and dental bills touches nearly every corner of American society.
Have you been forced into debt because of a medical or dental bill? Have you had to make any changes in your life because of such debt? Have you been pursued by debt collectors for a medical bill? We want to hear about it.
