Medicaid, the combined federal-state health insurance program for disabled and low-income people, was long considered low-quality, and was associated with a cultural stigma as a government handout benefiting poor, broke or lazy people. But thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, the program is shedding that association. Medicaid now covers more people than ever […]
Posted inCosts
Medicare Advantage — and Medicaid — feed insurers’ bottom lines
Medicare Advantage has become a huge cash cow for commercial insurance companies, and the insurers’ business from a combination of Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care dwarfs the commercial individual and group insurance business, according to figures compiled for a new Kaiser Family Foundation brief on insurance companies’ performance. In the brief, K.F.F. examined the […]
Posted inBriefs
Senior care is expensive, and Boomers aren’t ready
“Beth Roper had already sold her husband Doug’s boat and his pickup truck. Her daughter sends $500 a month or more. But it was nowhere near enough to pay the $5,950-a-month bill at Doug’s assisted-living facility. So last year, Roper, 65, abandoned her own plans to retire,” Chris Rowland writes at The Washington Post. “To […]
Posted incovid
Common diabetes medication reduces long Covid risk, study finds
Metformin, a common and inexpensive drug used to treat diabetes, protected people with Covid from getting long Covid in a study published in The Lancet. The study is a preprint, so it has not been peer-reviewed. But it has caused some excitement because it’s a second medication that seems to reduce long Covid. Paxlovid, a […]
Posted inProviders
The anesthesiology profession seems to be in crisis
Anesthesiology in the United States seems to be in crisis. Partly as a result of pandemic effects that drove doctors to leave the profession or cut back hours, and partly because of the pandemic’s effects on hospital finances, anesthesiologists and surgeons who use anesthesiologists in several states told us they were seeing danger signals that […]
Posted inCosts
Health contract gag clauses outlawed
In a little-noticed ruling, the traditional gag clauses in healthcare contracts that prohibit disclosure of pricing agreements have been outlawed by regulation by the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury. While at first glance this might look like an arcane footnote important only to a very few healthcare entities, it’s actually […]
Posted inCosts
How the algorithms make you pay too much
It breaks my heart to know that people are paying too much for healthcare because they cannot find our good service journalism. This is true largely because our Google search performance plummeted suddenly. We noticed it, and we were concerned — but we thought it was a quirk, or something that would quickly resolve. But […]
Posted inBriefs, Costs, Health reform, Patients
Medicare plan commissions may steer beneficiaries to wrong coverage
“Agents and brokers who sell Medicare plan coverage often steer their clients to a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan because it earns them a higher commission compared with a Medigap supplemental plan with traditional Medicare that might better serve the beneficiary’s needs,” Cheryl Clark writes at MedPage Today. “That’s the finding from a new Commonwealth Fund report […]
Posted inBriefs
Workforce supporting people with disabilities near collapse, report says
“The pandemic set in motion some positive shifts in the landscape of services availableto people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” says the 2023 Case for Inclusion report documenting the situation for people with disabilities. “New and new uses of technology made possible the expansion of remote supports, for example, while temporary funding increases enabled direct […]
Posted inCosts
GoodRX disclosed user data to Facebook, Google: FTC
“Millions of Americans have used GoodRx, a drug discount app, to search for lower prices on prescriptions like antidepressants, H.I.V. medications and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases at their local drugstores,” Natasha Singer writes for The New York Times. “But U.S. regulators say the app’s coupons and convenience came at a high cost for users: […]
