Health Care Costs
Colorado Blames Biden Team and Drugmakers for Delaying Canadian Imports
Colorado officials say their plan to import cheaper medicines from Canada has been stymied by opposition from drugmakers and inaction by the Biden administration, according to a state report obtained by KFF Health News. The Dec. 1 report, prepared for the state legislature by Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, says that state […]
California’s Ambitious Medicaid Experiment Gets Tripped Up in Implementation
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nearly two years into Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $12 billion experiment to transform California’s Medicaid program into a social services provider for the state’s most vulnerable residents, the institutions tasked with providing the new services aren’t effectively doing so, according to a survey released Tuesday. As part of the ambitious five-year initiative, called […]
Colorado Says Drug Industry Blocked Its Canada Dreams – And Biden Hasn’t Helped
Colorado’s leaders had grand plans to import cheaper medicines from Canada, after the Trump administration issued rules in 2020 allowing states to try it. But officials in Denver say they’ve been stymied by opposition from drugmakers — as well as the Biden administration’s inaction on the policy. That’s according to a Dec. 1 report we […]
Patients Expected Profemur Artificial Hips to Last. Then They Snapped in Half.
Bradley Little, a physical education teacher in Arizona, was leading his class through a school hallway in 2017 when he collapsed. Little feared he was having a stroke. Or, in a sign of the times, that he’d been shot. He tried to stand, but his leg wouldn’t move. A student ran for help. Firefighters arrived […]
FTC Chief Gears Up for a Showdown With Private Equity
A recent Federal Trade Commission civil lawsuit accusing one of the nation’s largest anesthesiology groups of monopolistic practices that sharply drove up prices is a warning to private equity investors that could temper their big push to snap up physician groups. Over the past three years, FTC and Department of Justice officials have signaled they […]
To Get Health Insurance, This Couple Made a Movie
Last fall, Ellen Haun and Dru Johnston were hustling to get their health insurance sorted out for 2023. The Hollywood couple are members of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing actors and writers. Members have to earn about $26,000 a year on union projects to be eligible for union insurance. And Haun was about $800 short. When […]
El daño colateral de la crisis de Medicaid: miles están perdiendo beneficios de alimentos
Una hora antes del amanecer, Shelly Brost caminó una milla bajo la lluvia helada hasta la oficina de asistencia pública de Missoula, en Montana. Se le estaba acabando el tiempo para demostrar que aún calificaba para recibir ayuda para comprar alimentos, después de intentar en vano comunicarse por teléfono. En dos ocasiones, intentó usar la […]
Medicaid ‘Unwinding’ Makes Other Public Assistance Harder to Get
MISSOULA, Mont. — An hour before sunrise, Shelly Brost walked a mile in freezing rain to the public assistance office. She was running out of time to prove she still qualified for food aid after being stymied by a backlogged state call center. Twice, she’d tried to use Montana’s public assistance help line to complete […]
El altísimo costo de tener una enfermedad autoinmune en Estados Unidos
Después de años de debilitantes ataques de fatiga, Beth VanOrden finalmente pensó que había encontrado la respuesta a sus problemas cuando en 2016 le diagnosticaron la enfermedad de Hashimoto, un trastorno autoinmune. Para VanOrden, como para millones de estadounidenses, esa es la causa más común de hipotiroidismo, una afección en la que la tiroides, una […]
Many Autoimmune Disease Patients Struggle With Diagnosis, Costs, Inattentive Care
After years of debilitating bouts of fatigue, Beth VanOrden finally thought she had an answer to her problems in 2016 when she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder. For her and millions of other Americans, that’s the most common cause of hypothyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid, a butterfly-shaped gland in the […]