Health Care Costs

It was the first day of her family’s vacation in the San Juan Islands last June when Danielle Laskey, who was 26 weeks pregnant, thought she was leaking amniotic fluid. A registered nurse, Laskey called her OB-GYN back home in Seattle, who said to seek immediate care. Staff members at a nearby emergency department found […]

Almost four years after becoming the first state to cap insulin copayments, Colorado may limit what consumers pay for epinephrine autoinjectors, also known as EpiPens, which treat serious allergic reactions. A proposed state law would cap out-of-pocket copays at $60 for a two-pack of epinephrine autoinjectors. In 2007, the wholesale price of a single EpiPen […]

Durante todo el día, y a veces hasta altas horas de la noche, buses y furgonetas llegan a tres centros de reconocimiento médico financiados por el estado cerca de la frontera sur de California con México. Los funcionarios federales de inmigración reciben a migrantes procedentes principalmente de Brasil, Cuba, Colombia y Perú, la mayoría de […]

All day and sometimes into the night, buses and vans pull up to three state-funded medical screening centers near California’s southern border with Mexico. Federal immigration officers unload migrants predominantly from Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, and Peru, most of whom await asylum hearings in the United States. Once inside, coordinators say, migrants are given face masks […]

A prescription drug that helps Lore Wilkinson walk and talk despite a rare muscle disease cost her so little for more than a decade that she didn’t even use her insurance to pay for it. But now, her Medicare insurance is shelling out about $40,000 for a one-month supply of the drug, and she fears […]

When billionaire Mark Cuban announced his attack on the pharmaceutical industry and its high-priced drugs in January 2021, it was met with cheers. His new company — the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., known as Cost Plus Drugs — has the “lowest prices on meds anywhere,” he said. The serial entrepreneur and owner of […]

When a patient faces an outrageous medical bill, they have two choices: Pay the balance or fight. Lauren Slemenda chose to fight. After failing to reach a consensus with the hospital on a fair price, she took the case to small-claims court. “An Arm and a Leg” host Dan Weissmann spoke with Slemenda about what […]

Hannah Crabtree got active on Twitter in 2016 to find more people like herself: those with Type 1 diabetes who’d hacked their insulin pumps to automatically adjust the amount of insulin delivered. Soon, though, Crabtree found a more critical diabetes-related conversation happening on Twitter: rising insulin prices. Crabtree’s mother, who also had diabetes, died in […]

Vanessa Garcia Clark wanted a more personal, nontraditional birth when she was pregnant with her son. She hired a midwife and gave birth at her home in California. But when she asked her insurer to reimburse her for the midwifery bill totaling more than $9,500, her claim was denied. In the first installment of InvestigateTV […]

This year’s health policy valentine submissions were full of compassion for patients and concern over the nation’s health care system. KHN’s readers and tweeters are among the most creative news consumers, sending in poetic valentines about physician assistants, the looming Medicaid unwinding, the Affordable Care Act, the upcoming end to the covid-19 public health emergency, […]