Protecting Americans from surprise medical costs
By Ed Weisbart for St. Louis Post-Dispatch Breaking news: At the end of 2019, Congress failed to fix a major problem with American health insurance. This would be comically boring if so many lives and so much money were not at stake. Chances are that you are among the majority of Americans who have received […]
How Greedy Hospitals Fleece the Poor
The most vulnerable Americans are being dunned into destitution through surprise fees and fraudulent practices. By Libby Watson for The New Republic The pundit class collapsed back in its chair last week, exhausted and spent, from a furious wonk-off session over Bernie Sanders’s rhetoric on medical bankruptcies. The Washington Post’s in-house political fact-checking apparatus assigned a […]
Private Equity: The Perps Behind Destructive Hospital Surprise Billing
By Yves Smith for Naked Capitalism I have to confess to having missed how private equity is a central bad actor in the “surprise billing” scam that is being targeted by Federal and state legislation. This abuse takes place when hospital patients, even when using a hospital that is in their insurer’s network, are hit […]
A $20,243 bike crash: Zuckerberg hospital’s aggressive tactics leave patients with big bills
I spent a year writing about ER bills. Zuckerberg San Francisco General has the most surprising billing practices I’ve seen. By Sarah Kliff for Vox On April 3, Nina Dang, 24, found herself in a position like so many San Francisco bike riders — on the pavement with a broken arm. A bystander saw her […]
He went to an in-network emergency room. He still ended up with a $7,924 bill.
By Sarah Kliff for VOX On January 28, 34-year-old Scott Kohan woke up in an emergency room in downtown Austin, Texas, with his jaw broken in two places, the result of a violent attack the night before. Witnesses called 911, which dispatched an ambulance that brought him to the hospital while he was unconscious. “The […]
The most underrated argument for single-payer health care
By Ryan Cooper for The Week If there’s one constant in modern American life, it’s paperwork and bills — and it’s rarely worse than it is for health care. If you need some medical procedure, you are virtually guaranteed several hours of tedious form-filling, made much worse by the knowledge that if you mess up, […]