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Marilyn Bartlett, credited with saving Montana’s state employee health plan millions of dollars, is a busy consultant now, as states, counties and big businesses try to use her playbook to bring down hospital costs.
State officials recently unveiled a “master plan” to address the needs of California’s rapidly aging population, from housing to long-term care. Kim McCoy Wade, director of the state Department of Aging, vows it will not end up on a shelf gathering dust.
A video on the social media platform TikTok explains how consumers can “crush” their hospital bills using charity care policies. This won’t work for all medical bills, but it might be a good place to start.
Tweeters lit up our timeline in recent days with Health Policy Valentines about a variety of health topics. Here are some of our favorites.
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.
Legislators in statehouses across the U.S. face the dual challenge of budgeting in a covid-crippled economy while planning for the pandemic’s long-term effects on mental health and substance abuse services.
Jeff Bloom, a lawyer who used to represent medical-bill collectors in court, is sharing what he knows. “I was a bad guy, for sure,” he said. Then, a few years ago, he switched sides.
Charlie Kjelshus needed neonatal intensive care for the first seven days of her life. The episode generated huge bills, and left her parents in a tangle of red tape that involved two insurers, two hospitals and two states.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
President Joe Biden is wasting no time getting to work. On his first day in office, Biden signed a series of executive orders addressing the covid pandemic, promising more to come. But even with Democrats taking the barest majority in the Senate, the new president’s ambitious proposals on covid and other health issues could be in for a rough ride. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet 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.
In late December, then-President Donald Trump signed a law that eliminates — only for people with Lou Gehrig’s disease — the required five-month waiting period before benefits begin under the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Gaining SSDI also gives these patients immediate Medicare health coverage.
Months after President Donald Trump credited monoclonal antibody therapy for his quick recovery from covid-19, only a trickle of the product has found its way into regular people. While hundreds of thousands of vials sit unused, sick patients who might benefit from early treatment have been left on their own to vie for access.
Host Dan Weissmann talked about a new federal rule — a requirement for hospitals to make public the prices they negotiate with insurers — with Niala Boodhoo for the daily-news podcast “Axios Today.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2021-22 budget blueprint would direct billions in state covid assistance to schools, businesses and the state’s vaccination effort. But he didn’t propose more funding for the state's 61 local health agencies, which have taken on increased responsibility for testing, contact tracing and enforcement of health orders.
With a majority too small to eliminate the filibuster, Democrats will not have enough votes in the Senate to pass many of their plans without Republicans and will also have only a razor-thin majority in the House. This combination could doom many Democratic health care proposals, like offering Americans a government-sponsored public insurance option, and complicate efforts to pass further pandemic relief.
Former health care executive Wendell Potter said, “What I used to do for a living was mislead people into thinking that we had the best health care system in the world.” Now, Potter is a health care whistleblower and spent part of 2020 publishing high-profile apologies for the work he used to do.
T.K. Dutes — a former nurse who is now a radio host and podcast-maker — interviewed ‘An Arm and a Leg’ host Dan Weissmann about what he learned in 2020, and what’s ahead for the show.
While many private insurers cap what members pay in health costs, Medicare does not. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have proposed annual limits ranging from $2,000 to $3,100. But there’s disagreement about how to pay for that cost cap.
The coronavirus pandemic colored just about everything in 2020. But there was other health policy news that you either never heard or might have forgotten about: the Affordable Care Act going before the Supreme Court with its survival on the line; ditto for Medicaid work requirements. And a surprise ending to the “surprise bill” saga. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News and Sarah Karlin-Smith of Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more.
A gynecologist in Carlsbad, New Mexico, tested the 60-year-old grandmother for various sexually transmitted infections without her knowledge. Her share of the lab fee was more than $3,000.
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