Jeanne Pinder
“Marcela Villa isn’t a big name in healthcare — but she played a crucial role in the lives of thousands of Medicaid patients in California,” Chad Terhune, lately of Kaiser Health News, writes over at The Los AngelesTimes. “Her official title: denial nurse. Each week, dozens of requests for treatment landed on her desk after […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Medicaid’s original objective was to provide medical care coverage to the poor. The poor, like the elderly (whose medical care would be covered by Medicare), had been largely left out of the U.S.’s growing employer-based insurance market because, starting in the 1950s, insurers began the practice of risk-rating (i.e., basing insurance premiums more on the […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: “Mayo Clinic’s chief executive made a startling announcement in a recent speech to employees: The Rochester-based health system will give preference to patients with private insurance over those with lower-paying Medicaid or Medicare coverage, if they seek care at the same time and have comparable conditions,” writes Jeremy Olson at The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “The […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: “It’s that time of year again. Insurance companies that participate in the Affordable Care Act’s state health exchanges are signaling that prices will rise dramatically this fall,” Christy Ford Chapin writes over at The Conversation, in a thorough, thoughtful examination of how our health care system came to be — including an explanation of […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: Mediciaid covers 1 in 4 Americans, and 73 percent of them are covered by private Medicaid plans, according to a new report by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The report says: “The trend towards Private Medicaid Health Plans continues, but how much more growth remains? This analysis, the third annual on the State of Medicaid, offers […]
Jeanne Pinder
One thing that’s been overlooked in the furor over problems at healthcare.gov is this: People who are eligible for Medicaid because of low income are getting health coverage. That was, after all, a big part of the plan. “Some states are signing up tens of thousands of new Medicaid enrollees in the initial weeks of […]
Jeanne Pinder
Here’s Part 3 of our mini-series on the Affordable Care Act and how the health insurance landscape is changing; Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here. * * * * * What can you tell me about buying health insurance under the new law? Not too much, please. Stick with us. This is not […]
Jeanne Pinder
Modern Healthcare on a new North Carolina law, which will require hospitals to “shine a light on the actual prices paid by Medicare, Medicaid and the uninsured, as well as the average and range of prices paid by the top five insurers.” “ ‘For too long, North Carolina patients have been in the dark on […]
Jeanne Pinder
Price lists for medical treatment are just about our favorite thing over here at ClearHealthCosts. We think people should be able to know what stuff costs in health care, and anything that sheds light on that — however fragmentary or imperfect — is good, as far as we’re concerned. We’ve collected some resources, and are […]
Jeanne Pinder
People with health insurance are happier, healthier and more financially stable. People without health insurance are more depressed, less healthy and financially stable. These conclusions — from an Oregon study published July 7 by the National Bureau of Economic Research — may seem obvious. But because of the fraught nature of the debate over health care, it’s […]
