Tag: Cost and Quality

February 12, 2021

Fed up with a lack of federal action to lower prescription drug costs, state legislators around the country are pushing bills to penalize drugmakers for unjustified price hikes and to cap payment at much-lower Canadian levels. These bills, sponsored by […]

January 28, 2021

Late last month, before President Joe Biden took office and proposed his pandemic relief plan, Congress passed a nearly 5,600-page legislative package that provided some pandemic relief along with its more general allocations to fund the government in 2021. While […]

December 22, 2020

Most Americans tell pollsters they’re worried about being able to afford an unexpected medical bill. Late Monday, Congress passed a bill to allay some of those fears. The measure is included in a nearly 5,600-page package providing coronavirus economic relief […]

September 28, 2020

When it comes to health care, President Donald Trump has promised far more than he has delivered. But that doesn’t mean his administration has had no impact on health issues — including the operation of the Affordable Care Act, prescription […]

July 1, 2020

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century. Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than […]

June 8, 2020

The U.S. health care system is famously resistant to government-imposed change. It took decades to create Medicare and Medicaid, mostly due to opposition from the medical-industrial complex. Then it was nearly another half-century before the passage of the Affordable Care […]

May 22, 2020

Hospitals around the country are afraid to send out hundreds of thousands of bills related to COVID-19 testing. That’s because Congress mandated there would be no copays and no out-of-pocket costs for patients. But many employers with self-funded health plans […]

December 23, 2019

SAN MARCOS, Calif. — Two mornings a week, a van arrives at the Escondido, Calif., home of Mario Perez and takes him to a new senior center in this northern San Diego County town, where he eats a hot lunch, […]

September 25, 2019

DSH funds are intended to support hospitals’ uncompensated-care costs, helping facilities that serve large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients. A final rule released Monday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandates cuts to that money beginning in […]

March 8, 2019

With much fanfare, federal officials required hospitals nationwide this year to post their “list” prices online. But it’s not yet clear how many are doing it, even as the government has taken the rare step of asking consumers to monitor […]

June 15, 2018

MINNEAPOLIS — Sandy Dowland has been to the emergency room 10 times in the past year and was hospitalized during four of those visits. She has had a toe amputated and suffers from uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, major depression, […]

December 22, 2017

The bill passed by Congress late Thursday to keep most of the federal government funded for another month also provided a temporary reprieve to a number of health programs in danger of running out of money, most notably the Children’s […]

October 13, 2017

Retirees spent on average more than a third of their Social Security benefits on out-of-pocket medical costs in 2014, according to a recent study. Even after factoring in other sources of income, medical spending still took a substantial 18 percent […]