Health Care Costs

When a longtime patient visited Dr. William Sawyer’s office after recovering from covid, the conversation quickly turned from the coronavirus to anxiety and ADHD. Sawyer — who has run a family medicine practice in the Cincinnati area for more than three decades — said he spent 30 minutes asking questions about the patient’s exercise and […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. Click here for a transcript of the episode. Credit reporting bureaus announced in March that they would start taking most paid medical debt off people’s credit reports. At first, we weren’t sure that would be such a huge deal. After all, the unpaid medical debt would still […]

SACRAMENTO — California quiere lograr lo que ningún otro estado ha conseguido: producir su propia marca de insulina genérica para venderla a precios reducidos a personas con diabetes como Sabrina Caudillo. Caudillo dijo que se siente como una “prisionera” de las tres principales compañías farmacéuticas que controlan el precio de la insulina, que sin seguro […]

SACRAMENTO — California is diving into the prescription drug business, attempting to achieve what no other state has done: produce its own brand of generic insulin and sell it at below-market prices to people with diabetes like Sabrina Caudillo. Caudillo said she feels like a “prisoner” to the three major pharmaceutical companies that control the […]

Miracle Abbott se quedó embarazada durante su primer año en la Universidad de Carolina del Sur. Tenía un trabajo mal pago y una enorme deuda estudiantil, por lo que la joven de 19 años recurrió al Programa Especial de Nutrición Suplementaria para Mujeres, Bebés y Niños, conocido como WIC, para obtener leche de fórmula y […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — “Adulting” was not going great for Tia Freeman. She had lost her scholarship at the University of Tennessee and enlisted in the Air Force. As she finished training to be an analyst, she got pregnant despite being on birth control. Both her parents worked, so the child care they could provide was […]

Miracle Abbott became pregnant during her junior year at the University of South Carolina Upstate. She worked a low-wage job and had mounting student debt, so the then-19-year-old turned to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, to get infant formula and food. But after she gave birth, her […]

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. Pulling No Punches on Abortion Reading the leaked draft opinion felt like a punch in the uterus (“Historic ‘Breach’ Puts Abortion Rights Supporters and Opponents on Alert for Upcoming Earthquake,” May […]

Montana, one of only about a dozen states with a fully government-run Medicaid program, has hired a new Medicaid director who oversaw managed-care programs in Iowa and Kansas and championed the idea of having outside companies do the work. Mike Randol took over May 31 as head of Montana’s Medicaid program, which serves 280,000 people […]

KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed why finding affordable mental health care is so difficult on NPR’s “1A” on May 18. Click here to hear Pattani on “1A” Freelancer Charlotte Huff discussed how Texas abortion laws complicate miscarriage treatment on “Texas Standard” on May 16. Click here to hear Huff on “Texas Standard” Read Huff’s “Ripple […]