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Maria Bishop, age 60, pays $500 a month for health insurance. Chris Denny, 27, pays $117. In most states, insurers can charge older customers far more than younger ones. As Congress wrestles with a health care overhaul, lawmakers are debating new limits that could narrow the difference.
When a claim is denied, an out-of-network fee is too costly, or an uninsured patient confronts an unclear or towering bill, an advocate may be able to help.
When Gary Diego's wife, Ellen, had bleeding in her brain, she ended up in an out-of-network emergency room. And he ended up with a huge bill. In a practice known as balance billing, insurers pay a portion of the out-of-network charges, and the rest is dumped on patients.
President Barack Obama spoke about health insurance, a pressed for a need to overhaul the health care system at town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday.
The White House released a transcript of President Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Belgrade, Montana. He begins with prepared remarks and then answers questions from the audience.
President Barack Obama continued his press for public support of health reform initiatives Tuesday at what The White House called a "Health Insurance Reform Town Hall" meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
As the economy has worsened, community health centers - which provide free and reduced-cost care to millions of Americans - have felt the pinch . Facilities, such as the Walker-Jones Health Center in Washington D.C., will have even more patients if Congress passes a health overhaul that expands coverage.
While health reform legislation includes additional funds for community health centers, proposals to expand health coverage to the underserved and uninsured could overwhelm facilities that already provide reduced-cost care to 18 million people.
A trade group says insurers only make 1 cent off every dollar spent on health care. But that figure measures insurer profits against all the money pumped into the U.S. system. Economists say profits are traditionally calculated by how much insurers spend versus how much money they take in.
For the tens of thousands of individual insurance agents nationwide, proposed changes to the health care system could radically alter how they do business.
In interviews, two agents talk about how they are bracing themselves for the post-reform environment. One thinks her fellow agents are too complacent, the other says "in every adversity, there is opportunity."
The little-known crime of medical identity theft can cause havoc - victims end up with big bills and wrong medical records. A new federal "Red Flags Rule" would require physician offices, among other businesses, to spot phony IDs. Doctors protest that the regulation could have "serious adverse consequences" for patients, even as the government tries to protect them.
Consumer and patients' groups criticize proposal that would let employers bestow bigger premium discounts on employees who embrace wellness programs.
As Senate Democrats scramble to finance an ambitious health care overhaul, they're exploring ways to get extract money from the insurance industry, including taxing very costly policies. They're also considering tacking a fee onto every new policy sold as a result of health reform or a flat tax on insurer profits.
Powerful hospital trade associations are opposing President Obama's plan for an independent commission to determine how much Medicare pays doctors and hospitals. But certain "model" hospital systems - such as CHRISTUS Health - are breaking ranks and supporting the idea.
Excerpts from President Obama's news conference, held on July 22, 2009.
This week, progress was made in developing the framework for the $33 billion health information technology initiative created by the stimulus bill. Dr. David Blumenthal, who heads the Office of the National Coordinator, is a key figure in the process. But he still faces one of the most difficult challenges -- convincing doctors that it is in their interest to participate.
A leader of the Blue Dog Coalition of conservative House Democrats said today that he and six others in the group will vote together to block health care legislation in committee unless changes are made to slow the rate of growth of federal health care spending and to ensure that rural hospitals are adequately reimbursed for treating new patients under the legislation.
President Obama and leading Democrats have stressed that people who like their employer-sponsored insurance would be able to keep it, under a health care overhaul. But they haven't emphasized the flip side: That people who don't like their coverage might have to keep it.
In a follow-up to an earlier story about the difficulty of finding health insurance for a rural small businessman, an insurance broker helps Larry Harbour of Broken Bow, Neb., find affordable coverage.
To encourage people to buy long-term care insurance, more states are starting programs that allow people to keep some assets if they exhaust insurance benefits and need to go on Medicaid. Without such an arrangement, they would have to "spend down" assets to qualify for Medicaid. But, experts warn, the policies need strong inflation protections.
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