KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Biden Declares the Pandemic ‘Over’

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. President Joe Biden’s declaration in a national interview that the covid-19 pandemic is “over” has complicated his own administration’s efforts to get Congress to provide more funding for treatments and vaccines, and to ...

Centene to Pay $166 Million to Texas in Medicaid Drug Pricing Settlement

By Andy Miller and Samantha Young Health insurance giant Centene Corp. has agreed to pay $165.6 million to Texas to resolve claims that it overcharged the state’s Medicaid program for pharmacy services. It’s the biggest known payout by the nation’s largest Medicaid insurer over its drug pricing practices. The deal was signed July 11 but hadn’t been publicly announced until ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Graham’s Bill Recenters Abortion Debate

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here for a transcript of the episode. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put abortion back on Republicans’ agenda this week with a legislative proposal calling for a national ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnan ...

Court Ruling May Spur Competitive Health Plans to Bring Back Copays for Preventive Services

By Harris Meyer Tom and Mary Jo York are a health-conscious couple, going in for annual physicals and periodic colorectal cancer screening tests. Mary Jo, whose mother and aunts had breast cancer, also gets regular mammography tests. The Yorks, who live in New Berlin, Wisconsin, are enrolled in Chorus Community Health Plans, which, like most of the nation’s health plans, is requi ...

Medical Coding Creates Barriers to Care for Transgender Patients

By Helen Santoro Last year, Tim Chevalier received the first of many coverage denials from his insurance company for the hair removal procedure he needed as part of a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis. Electrolysis is a common procedure among transgender people like Chevalier, a software developer in Oakland, California. In some cases, it’s used to remove unwanted hair from t ...

Many Preventive Medical Services Cost Patients Nothing. Will a Texas Court Decision Change That?

By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News A federal judge’s ruling in Texas has thrown into question whether millions of insured Americans will continue to receive some preventive medical services, such as cancer screenings and drugs that protect people from HIV infection, without making a copayment. It’s the latest legal battle over the Affordable Care Act, and Wednesday’s ruling ...

‘It’s Becoming Too Expensive to Live’: Anxious Older Adults Try to Cope With Limited Budgets

By Judith Graham Economic insecurity is upending the lives of millions of older adults as soaring housing costs and inflation diminish the value of fixed incomes. Across the country, seniors who until recently successfully managed limited budgets are growing more anxious and distressed. Some lost work during the covid-19 pandemic. Others are encountering unaffordable rent increases ...

Rural Americans Have Difficulty Accessing a Promising Cancer Treatment

By Debby Waldman Suzanne BeHanna initially turned down an experimental but potentially lifesaving cancer treatment. Three years ago, the newlywed, then 62, was sick with stage 4 lymphoma, sick from two failed rounds of chemotherapy, and sick of living in a trailer park near the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It was fall 2019, and treatment had forced her ...

The $18,000 Breast Biopsy: When Having Insurance Costs You a Bundle

By Lauren Sausser When Dani Yuengling felt a lump in her right breast last summer, she tried to ignore it. She was 35, the same age her mother had been when she received a breast cancer diagnosis in 1997. The disease eventually killed Yuengling’s mom in 2017. “It was the hardest experience, seeing her suffer,” said Yuengling, who lives in Conway, South Carolina. Aft ...

Readers and Tweeters Place Value on Community Services and Life-Sustaining Care

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. A Cure for Ambulance Sticker Shock This is a comment about your recent story on ambulance surprise bills (“The Ambulance Chased One Patient Into Collections,” July 27). In the story, three siblings were taken from an accident in thr ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Wrapping Up Summer’s Health News

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Congress and President Joe Biden are officially on summer vacation, but they left behind a lot of health policy achievements. The president returned this week from his South Carolina beach retreat to sign the Inflation Reductio ...

Sleepless Nights Over Her Children’s Future as Debts Pile Up

By Noam N. Levey “My doctor saved my life, but my medical bills are stealing from my children’s lives.” Jeni Rae Peters Jeni Rae Peters, 44, Rapid City, South Dakota Approximate Medical Debt: More than $30,000 Medical Issue: Breast cancer What Happened: Jeni Rae Peters’ budget has always been tight. But Peters, a single mom and mental health counselor, has worked ...

Buy and Bust: Collapse of Private Equity-Backed Rural Hospitals Mired Employees in Medical Bills

By Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News The first unexpected bill arrived in December, just weeks before Tara Lovell’s husband of 40 years died from bladder cancer. Lovell worked as an ultrasound technologist at the local Audrain Community Hospital, in Mexico, Missouri, and was paying more than $400 a month for health insurance through her job. The town’s struggling hospi ...

For Medically Vulnerable Families, Inflation’s Squeeze Is Inescapable

By Heidi de Marco, Kaiser Health News ROSAMOND, Calif. — Deborah Lewis rose from bed before dawn and signed in to her phone so she could begin delivering fast food, coffee, and groceries to residents in this western patch of the Mojave Desert where test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier generations ago. Lewis prayed she would earn $75, just enough to fill the tank of her ...

Watch: How Nursing Homes Put Friends and Families on the Hook for Residents’ Debts

Barbara Robinson was just trying to help her mother’s friend sign up for Medicaid and move into the Monroe County nursing home in Rochester, New York. But because Robinson signed the admissions form, the nursing home considered her financially responsible for the woman’s care, Anna Werner reported for CBS News. After the woman died, the county sued Robinson for $21,000 in unpaid bills. Thi ...

Inflation Reduction Act Contains Important Cost-Saving Changes for Many Patients — Maybe for You 

By Michael McAuliff The giant health care, climate, and tax bill expected to pass the House on Friday and be sent to the president for his signature won’t be as sweeping as the Democrats who wrote it had hoped, but it would help millions of Americans better afford their prescription drugs and health insurance. The Inflation Reduction Act is estimated to spend about $485 billion o ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: A Big Week for Biden

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Health policy was front and center as Congress rushed to pass major legislation before leaving for its summer break. President Joe Biden signed a bill this week providing health benefits to military veterans who were sickened b ...

No, the Senate-Passed Reconciliation Bill Won’t Strip $300 Billion From Medicare

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Senate Democrats’ reconciliation bill “will strip $300 billion from Medicare.” Ad from the American Prosperity Alliance, posted July 19 As Senate Democrats raced to pass what could be their final piece of major legislation before the midterm elections, critics went to the airwaves to blast the proposal as hurting older Americans who rely on Medicare. ...

California Gov. Newsom Pins Political Rise on Abortion, Guns, and Health Care

By Angela Hart SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gavin Newsom is fed up with Republicans for attacking abortion rights and blocking gun regulations — and with his own Democratic Party for failing to boldly and brashly take on the conservative right and push a progressive agenda. And as California’s first-term governor positions himself as the national Democratic Party pit bull, no other i ...

Journalists Put Polio, Price Transparency, and a Personal Covid Battle in Perspective

KHN senior correspondent Arthur Allen discussed New York’s polio case with WBEZ’s “Reset With Sasha-Ann Simons” on Aug. 2. Click here to hear Allen on WBEZ Read Allen’s “What the Polio Case in New York Tells Us About the End of Polio” KHN senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed health insurance price transparency rules that took effect July 1 on WJR’s “The Pre W. Smit ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Kansas Makes a Statement

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Click here for a transcript of the episode. Voters in Kansas told the rest of the country this week that they don’t want their state to ban abortion. In a nearly 60%-40% split, voters turned back an effort by anti-abortion ...

They Lost Medicaid When Paperwork Was Sent to an Empty Field, Signaling the Mess to Come

By Brett Kelman BELFAST, Tenn. — Three years ago, Mason Lester, a rambunctious toddler, tumbled off his family’s porch and broke his wrist. His mother, nine months pregnant, rushed him to a nearby hospital, where she made a confounding discovery: Their health insurance had vanished. Alarmed, Katie Lester called the Tennessee Medicaid agency, TennCare, which had covered her duri ...

La crisis de deuda que los estadounidenses enfermos no pueden evitar

By Elisabeth Rosenthal La promesa de campaña del presidente Joe Biden de cancelar la deuda estudiantil por los primeros $10,000 adeudados en préstamos universitarios federales ha generado un debate sobre la equidad de estos programas de préstamos. En un sondeo de junio, poco más de la mitad de los estadounidenses encuestados apoyaron que se condonara la deuda universita ...

The Debt Crisis That Sick Americans Can’t Avoid

By Elisabeth Rosenthal President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to cancel student debt for the first $10,000 owed on federal college loans has raised debate about the fairness of such lending programs. While just over half of Americans surveyed in a June poll supported forgiving that much debt incurred for higher education, 82% said that making college more affordable was their preferred approa ...

Health Insurance Price Data: It’s Out There, but It’s Not for the Faint of Heart

By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News Data wonks with mighty computers are overjoyed. Ordinary consumers, not so much. That’s the reaction about three weeks into a data dump of enormous proportions. Health insurers are posting their negotiated rates for just about every type of medical service they cover across all providers. But so much data is flowing in from insurers — ten ...

Even Well-Intended Laws Can’t Protect Us From Inaccurate Provider Directories

By Bernard J. Wolfson If you have medical insurance, chances are you’ve been utterly exasperated at some point while trying to find an available doctor or mental health practitioner in your health plan’s network. It goes like this: You find multiple providers in your plan’s directory, and you call them. All of them. Alas, the number is wrong; or the doctor has moved, or retir ...

Ad Targeting Manchin and AARP Mischaracterizes Medicare Drug-Price Negotiations

By Victoria Knight and Colleen DeGuzman Sen. Joe Manchin and AARP “support government price-setting schemes” to divert money from Medicare to “unrelated government programs or pad big insurers’ profits.” Ad by American Commitment, July 10 A snappy political advertisement from the conservative advocacy group American Commitment bluntly charges Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) with su ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Drug Price Bill Is a Go in the Senate

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. President Joe Biden is the latest top Washington official to test positive for covid-19, following Vice President Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But work continues, p ...

‘So Rudderless’: A Couple’s Quest for Autism Treatment for Their Son Hits Repeated Obstacles

By Michelle Andrews When Sebastian Rios was a toddler, he hardly talked. “Don’t worry,” his pediatrician told Amparo and Victor Rios, Sebastian’s parents. Kids who grow up in households in which both Spanish and English are spoken are sometimes slower to develop language skills, she said. Plus, Sebastian was developing well in other ways: When he was just 18 months old, for ...

No-Bid Medicaid Contract for Kaiser Permanente Is Now California Law, but Key Details Are Missing

By Bernard J. Wolfson [Editor’s note: KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.] California lawmakers have approved a controversial no-bid statewide Medi-Cal contract for HMO giant Kaiser Permanente over the objection of county governments and competing health plans. But key details — including how many new patients KP will enroll — are still unclear. On June 30, with ...

A Free-for-All From Readers and Tweeters, From Medical Debt to Homelessness

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. It is appalling that an article like this even has to be written. Our "healthcare" system is broken.How to get rid of medical debt — or avoid it in the first place https://t.co/EIo7lHps8k— Karin Wiberg (@kswiberg) July 1, 2022 — K ...

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Life After ‘Roe’ Is … Confusing

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Supreme Court’s decision overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion has left confusion in its wake. State abortion laws are in constant flux, patients and providers are unsure what services are legal where, ...

Tres cosas que hay que saber sobre la cobertura del seguro para abortos

¿Pagará tu plan de salud por un aborto ahora que la Corte Suprema derogó Roe vs. Wade? Incluso antes del fallo del 24 de junio, la cobertura del aborto variaba mucho. Ahora, el problema es aún más complejo ya que los estados establecen diferentes reglas: se espera que aproximadamente la mitad limite o prohíba el aborto en casi todas las circunstancias. Sin embargo, ...

Three Things to Know About Insurance Coverage for Abortion

By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News Will your health plan pay for an abortion now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade? Even before the June 24 ruling, insurance coverage for abortion varied widely. Now the issue is even more complex as states set varying rules — about half are expected to limit or ban abortion in almost all circumstances. To be clear, though, th ...

Patients With Epilepsy Navigate Murky Unregulated CBD Industry

By Eric Berger In 2013, Tonya Taylor was suicidal because her epileptic seizures persisted despite taking a long list of medications. Then a fellow patient at a Denver neurologist’s office mentioned something that gave Taylor hope: a CBD oil called Charlotte’s Web. The person told her the oil helped people with uncontrolled epilepsy. However, the doctor would discuss it only � ...

In America, Cancer Patients Endure Debt on Top of Disease

By Noam N. Levey RAPID CITY, S.D. ― Jeni Rae Peters would make promises to herself as she lay awake nights after being diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. “My kids had lost so much,” said Peters, a single mom and mental health counselor. She had just adopted two girls and was fostering four other children. “I swore I wouldn’t force them to have yet another par ...

Journalists Explain the Effects of ‘Dobbs’ Decision and New Insurer Price Transparency Rules

KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed how the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion affects contraception on NPR/WAMU’s “1A” on July 6. Click here to hear Rovner on “1A” KHN senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed insurer price transparency regulations on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” on July 2. Click here to hear Appleby on “Weekend Edition ...