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It was early summer. A senior federal health official wrote a memo suggesting that living wills -- documents that can convey patients' wishes about when to end life support -- could help curb health-care costs.
The bill is enormously expensive, but it is full of perverse incentives
The House health overhaul bill is a great start. It should just be faster, stronger and--really--bigger.
If the president and his aides continue to signal that House bill is acceptable, they will never be able to deliver the real reform the president has promised.
Lately conservatives have been making an argument you should hear. It's about whether we can believe Congress when it promises to raise taxes or cut spending--and, as such, whether we can believe that health care reform can actually be fiscally responsible.
Legislation seeks to limit the amount low-and middle-income people will pay for health insurance. But a shift in the way their share of the premium is calculated in the second year of the program may make it more expensive.
In drafting national standards on how health insurers should be able to use age to set premium rates, congressional committees agree that older people should pay more. But they differ widely on just how much. Ultimately, it comes down to how many young adults get into the pool.
As part of the economic stimulus, the government offered subsidies so laid-off workers could keep their health insurance. For some, the subsidies are running out.
At Hillcrest Medical Center, which is testing a "bundled" Medicare payment system, some seniors get paid up to $1,157 for having surgery. The pilot program aims to save money and improve care by paying doctors and hospitals a lump sum and rewards the patients with part of the savings.
Seventy-six year old Frank Morrow is not only having his knee replaced at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's also helping to test a Medicare payment system.
The relationship between the Democrats and health insurers has turned ugly since the industry began to spurn the health care makeover it once supported. Now, some members of Congress Democrats want to strip the industry's exemption from federal antitrust laws.
While top members of the House and Senate are struggling to put together health care overhaul bills on Capitol Hill, elsewhere in Washington, patient advocates and other groups are trying to take apart some of the deals already cut with top health care industry groups.
Trying to discredit the Dartmouth data is a distraction from the real work that's needed to understand and remedy the extraordinary amount of money spent on care that does not appear to make a difference in health.
Pharmaceutical companies have found a way around higher insurance copays for brand-name drugs. They offer coupon cards so patients don't have to pay more. But insurance companies say that if everyone uses the cards to get pricier name-brand drugs, premiums will rise. This story comes from our partner NPR News
Buried inside the insurers' new piece of propaganda were two perfectly valid arguments--arguments that advocates of reform would be foolish to ignore.
Prescription drug spending is the third most expensive cost in the U.S. health care system. The average American gets 12 prescriptions a year, and this number only seems to grow larger. We examine what drove the increase in prescription drug consumption in America. This story comes from our partner NPR News
Donna Taylor's father planned ahead - he had insurance and savings to pay for health coverage when he retired. But when he got sick and couldn't walk, he found he did not have enough coverage to pay for care for himself and his disabled wife.
We are not ready for healthy retirement, and we are desperately unprepared for the costly medical and long-term care we are likely to need in old age.
In the mid-1970s, an unconventional researcher named Jack Wennberg discovered an unusually high rate of hysterectomies in Lewiston, Maine. That was just one of a series of studies that led to a very surprising conclusion about health care: a large portion of the medical care Americans get is unnecessary.
Facility fees, charged to patients who get treatment in hospital-owned outpatient clinics, are used defray to hospital overhead, pay salaries and meet stringent standards, hospital officials say. Critics say the fees are a way to increase the cost of care when patients can least afford it.
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