Health Care Costs

Pharmaceutical companies that manufacture insulin made headlines last year when they voluntarily agreed to provide discount cards that lower the monthly cost of insulin for many people to $35.  But getting your hands on this card — and persuading a pharmacist to accept it — can be a hassle. In this episode of “An Arm […]

Debra Prichard was a retired factory worker who was careful with her money, including what she spent on medical care, said her daughter, Alicia Wieberg. “She was the kind of person who didn’t go to the doctor for anything.” That ended last year, when the rural Tennessee resident suffered a devastating stroke and several aneurysms. […]

Mary Delgado’s first pregnancy went according to plan, but when she tried to get pregnant again seven years later, nothing happened. After 10 months, Delgado, now 34, and her partner, Joaquin Rodriguez, went to see an OB-GYN. Tests showed she had endometriosis, which was interfering with conception. Delgado’s only option, the doctor said, was in […]

Last year alone, David Mitchell paid $16,525 for 12 little bottles of Pomalyst, one of the pricey medications that treat his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010. The drugs have kept his cancer at bay. But their rapidly increasing costs so infuriated Mitchell that he was inspired to create an […]

The No Surprises Act, the landmark law intended to protect patients from surprise out-of-network medical bills, has come with, well, some surprises. A little more than two years after it took effect, there’s good and bad news about how it’s working. First, it’s important to note that the law has successfully protected millions of patients […]

Nothing melts our hearts like a health policy valentine. Readers made us swoon this season, writing poetic lines about prescription drug pricing, medical debt, primary care shortages, and more.  Here are some of our favorites, starting with the grand prize winner and first runner-up, whose entries were each turned into a cartoon by staff illustrator […]

GoFundMe empezó como un sitio colectivo de recaudación de fondos para apoyar “ideas y sueños” y, como dijeron una vez su fundadores, Andrew Ballester y Brad Damphousse, “para los momentos importantes de la vida”. En sus primeros años, financiaba viajes de luna de miel, regalos de graduación y misiones religiosas a hospitales necesitados en el […]

GoFundMe started as a crowdfunding site for underwriting “ideas and dreams,” and, as GoFundMe’s co-founders, Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse, once put it, “for life’s important moments.” In the early years, it funded honeymoon trips, graduation gifts, and church missions to overseas hospitals in need. Now GoFundMe has become a go-to platform for patients trying […]

A la mitad del proceso de un año que ya es la mayor purga de beneficiarios de Medicaid, la inscripción en el programa de seguro de salud administrado por el gobierno está en camino de volver a niveles aproximadamente previos a la pandemia. Medicaid, que cubre a personas de bajos ingresos y discapacitadas, y el […]

Halfway through what will be the biggest purge of Medicaid beneficiaries in a one-year span, enrollment in the government-run health insurance program is on track to return to roughly pre-pandemic levels. Medicaid, which covers low-income and disabled people, and the related Children’s Health Insurance Program grew to a record 94 million enrollees as a result […]