Health Care Costs In America

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Deceased patient's family owes $81,000 for a single air-ambulance flight​

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. She twice was rushed from her local hospital to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, 79 miles away, where she was treated by brain specialists. She died October 31 at age 70.

One of Prichard's trips to the Nashville hospital was via helicopter ambulance. Wieberg said she had heard such flights could be pricey, but she didn't realize how extraordinary the charge would be — or how her mother's skimping on Medicare coverage could leave the family on the hook.

Then the bill came.

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MSN

 

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Jacobin

How Medical Debt Destroys the Lives of Millions of Americans​

The United States lags behind almost every wealthy country in not having a health care system that is either free at the point of use or affordable. Instead, millions of people are saddled with medical debt that they will never be able to afford to pay back. Even on its own terms, this system is irrational. The revenue raised for private hospitals and debt collectors by issuing patients with bills is a relatively insignificant proportion of income. However, the costs of these debts to patients, who are often summoned to court because of delinquent payments, are life wrecking.

Luke Messac, a doctor and historian of medical treatment, spoke to Astra Taylor for Jacobin’s the Dig podcast about the causes of the United States’ medical debt crisis. At the heart of it is, he argues, not just ruthless profiteering of the private insurance and medical establishment, but the refusal of charity and public hospitals to live up to their legally mandated commitments to patients.

However, the fact that doctors, historically hostile to efforts to create single-payer health care, have joined picket lines in recent years is a welcome sign. The struggle for free health care in the United States must, as Messac argues, rely on a recognition of the hospital as a site for labor organizing and mobilization.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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MSN

 

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Denying You Health Care Is Big Business in America | NYT Opinion​

Mar 14, 2024

Should your insurance company be allowed to stop you from getting a treatment — even if your doctor says it’s necessary?

Doctors are often required to get insurance permission before providing medical care. This process is called prior authorization and it can be used by profit-seeking insurance companies to create intentional barriers between patients and the health care they need.

At best, it’s just a minor bureaucratic headache. At worst, people have died.

Prior authorization has been around for decades, but doctors say its use has increased in recent years and now rank it as one of the top issues in health care.

To produce the Opinion Video above, we spoke to more than 50 doctors and patients. They shared horror stories about a seemingly trivial process that inflicts enormous pain, on a daily basis. The video also explains how a process that is supposed to save money actually inflates U.S. health care costs while enriching insurance companies.

Prior authorization has come under intense scrutiny in Congress in the past few years, but bipartisan proposals have repeatedly stalled. Under public pressure, some insurance companies — like United Healthcare and Cigna — have said they would reduce the use of prior authorization. And in January, the Biden administration finalized a plan to put limited guardrails around this practice. But doctors say that these efforts only scratch the surface and should go further.

This issue is ultimately about the role of insurance companies in American health care: Should they have more power than your doctor to decide what’s medically best for you?


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The US doesn’t have universal health care — but these states (almost) do​

Universal health care remains an unrealized dream for the United States. But in some parts of the country, the dream has drawn closer to a reality in the 13 years since the Affordable Care Act passed.

Overall, the number of uninsured Americans has fallen from 46.5 million in 2010, the year President Barack Obama signed his signature health care law, to about 26 million today. The US health system still has plenty of flaws — beyond the 8 percent of the population who are uninsured, far higher than in peer countries, many of the people who technically have health insurance still find it difficult to cover their share of their medical bills. Nevertheless, more people enjoy some financial protection against health care expenses than in any previous period in US history.

The country is inching toward universal coverage. If everybody who qualified for either the ACA’s financial assistance or its Medicaid expansion were successfully enrolled in the program, we would get closer still: More than half of the uninsured are technically eligible for government health care aid.

The US doesn’t have universal health care — but these states (almost) do

Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?

www.vox.com

 

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Here’s Who Should Pay for Everyone’s Ozempic

The people responsible for getting us into this situation, of course.

slate.com