Health Care Costs

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. Click here for a transcript of the episode. As Americans choose their insurance plans for next year, some might wonder: How does the recent rise in state abortion restrictions affect insurance plans? There’s no single answer, but for a lot of people, insurance has rarely helped pay […]

[UPDATED on Dec. 6] This spring, a Chevron worker testified that the company revoked health coverage for hundreds of members of the United Steelworkers Local 5 at the Richmond, California, refinery during a strike that ultimately lasted two months. Thousands of nurses at Stanford Health Care were told in April they would lose their health […]

Newly released federal audits reveal widespread overcharges and other errors in payments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors, with some plans overbilling the government more than $1,000 per patient a year on average. Summaries of the 90 audits, which examined billings from 2011 through 2013 and are the most recent reviews completed, were obtained […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. 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. The coming Congress will look different from the current one: While Democrats narrowly kept control of the U.S. Senate, […]

Patients at North Carolina-based Atrium Health get what looks like an enticing pitch when they go to the nonprofit hospital system’s website: a payment plan from lender AccessOne. The plans offer “easy ways to make monthly payments” on medical bills, the website says. You don’t need good credit to get a loan. Everyone is approved. […]

Más de 2 millones de personas de bajos ingresos, la mitad de ellos en Florida y Texas, no tienen seguro porque están atrapados en una brecha de cobertura. Ganan demasiado para tener derecho a Medicaid, pero debido a una peculiaridad de la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA), ganan demasiado poco para […]

More than 2 million low-income people — half of them in Florida and Texas — are uninsured because they are stuck in a coverage gap: They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but because of a quirk of the Affordable Care Act, they earn too little to qualify for a subsidized ACA marketplace plan. […]

The documentary “InHospitable” explores the role hospitals play in a fractured U.S. health care system and how they have driven up costs. It presents stories of patients and activists who protested practices at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a behemoth health system headquartered in Pittsburgh. They asserted that UPMC was making vital care unaffordable […]

SACRAMENTO — Casi tres años después de que California comenzara a multar a los residentes que no tienen seguro médico, KHN supo que el estado no ha distribuido ninguno de los ingresos que ha recaudado, un dinero que estaba destinado a ayudar a los californianos que luchan por pagar la cobertura. Y, hasta ahora, la […]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Nearly three years after California started fining residents who don’t have health insurance, the state has not distributed any of the revenue it has collected, KHN has learned — money that was intended to help Californians struggling to pay for coverage. And so far, the majority of Californians paying the tax penalty […]