Health Care Costs

The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A […]

It was Labor Day weekend 2021 when Sara Walsh, who was 24 weeks pregnant with twins, began to experience severe lower-back pain. On Wednesday, a few days later, a maternal-fetal specialist near her home in Winter Haven, Florida, diagnosed Walsh with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a rare complication that occurs when fetuses share blood unevenly through […]

The Host Mary Agnes Carey KFF Health News @maryagnescarey Read Mary Agnes’ stories Mary Agnes Carey, Partnerships Editor and Senior Correspondent, oversees placement of KFF Health News content in publications nationwide. She has covered health care policy and politics for KFF Health News, CQ, Dow Jones Newswires, and other news outlets. Supreme Court justices could […]

Seven months after Lahavah Wallace’s weight loss operation, a New York bariatric surgery practice sued her, accusing her of “intentionally” failing to pay nearly $18,000 of her bill. Long Island Minimally Invasive Surgery, which does business as the New York Bariatric Group, went on to accuse Wallace of “embezzlement,” alleging she kept insurance payments that […]

In 2014, Lisa French had spinal surgery. Before the operation, she was told she would have to pay $1,337 in out-of-pocket costs and that her insurance would cover the rest. However, the hospital ended up sending French a bill for $229,000. When she didn’t pay, it sued her. The case went all the way to […]

SAN DIEGO — Sporting a bright smile and the polished Super Bowl ring he won as a star NFL player in the late 1980s, Craig McEwen doesn’t fit the archetype of someone teetering on the brink of homelessness. Evicted from his San Diego County apartment last July, McEwen — who endured repeated concussions during his […]

KFF Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed the transparency — or lack thereof — and distribution of $50 billion in settlement funds from opioid manufacturers on WNHN’s “Attitude With Arnie Arnesen” on April 11. Click here to hear Pattani on “Attitude With Arnie Arnesen” Read Pattani’s “$50 Billion in Opioid Settlement Cash Is on […]

El nuevo fármaco parecía muy prometedor, si no fuera por una señal de peligro. En la reunión anual del Colegio Americano de Reumatología en 2008, el doctor John Sundy, de la Universidad de Duke, anunció con orgullo que la pegloticasa, un fármaco que había ayudado a desarrollar, era asombrosamente eficaz en el tratamiento de la […]

[UPDATED on April 18] The new drug looked so promising — except for that one warning sign. At the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting in 2008, Duke University’s Dr. John Sundy proudly announced that pegloticase, a drug he’d helped develop, was astoundingly effective at treating severe gout, which affects perhaps 50,000 Americans. In about […]

Emanuel Medical Center in rural Georgia racks up more than $350,000 a month in losses providing health care for low-income and uninsured patients. But a new state funding proposal could significantly reduce those deficits, not just for the 66-bed Swainsboro facility but for most rural hospitals in Georgia, according to state Medicaid officials. It’s not […]