How Employees & Employers Get Bled by Health Insurance

Something is seriously wrong with this system. By Wolf Richter for Wolf Street The annual cost of the average health insurance family plan through employers — employer and employee contributions combined – rose another 4.9% in 2019, to $20,576. This is up 255% from 20 years ago, having soared five times faster than the Consumer […]

Why the Private Health Insurance Industry Faces an Existential Crisis

A former health insurance executive says the moment the insurance industry fears most has arrived. By Wendell Potter for the Independent Media Institute I have told a lot of stories about my time near the top of the health insurance industry. This is not one I’ve ever shared, until now. Shortly before I left Cigna, […]

Another reason to support Medicare for all

By David Greenberg for Greenfield Recorder Patients get ‘surprise’ bills when their health insurance company refuses to pay for out-of-network treatments. This often happens when patients have little choice over where they receive care, such as an emergency room visit. Watching the national debate over surprise medical billing makes it abundantly clear how committed health […]

Negin Owliaei: No one should have to bargain for health care

By Negin Owliaei for Lenconnect.com Nearly 50,000 members of the United Auto Workers began striking earlier this month, demanding that General Motors pay them their fair share of the billions in profits the company raked in last year. The first response from General Motors was shocking. The automaker, which accepted billions in government bailouts during […]

Health Insurance Costs Surpass $20,000 Per Year, Hitting a Record

Ever-rising premiums have pushed some to drop coverage By John Tozzi for Bloomberg The cost of family health coverage in the U.S. now tops $20,000, an annual survey of employers found, a record high that has pushed an increasing number of American workers into plans that cover less or cost more, or force them out of the insurance […]

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 […]

Medicare for All Would Cut Poverty by Over 20 Percent

By Matt Bruenig for People’s Policy Project The Census released its annual income, poverty, and health insurance statistics earlier this week. The summary report shows that 8 million of the nation’s 42.5 million poor people would not be poor if they did not have to pay medical out-of-pocket (MOOP) expenses like deductibles, copays, coinsurance, and […]

Demonstrators for Medicare for All March on Office of Congresswoman Eshoo

By Healthcare is a Human Right On September 5, Santa Clara County Single Payer Coalition and National Nurses United led a protest that started with a march through downtown Palo Alto leading to the door of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. The Congresswoman has made it clear she is against eliminating for-profit insurance companies from our healthcare […]

All-day protest draws attention to opioid crisis, ‘Medicare for All’

Liberal group makes rounds in lawmaker offices with personal stories By Chris Marquette for Roll Call On an early morning in May, Freddie Henderson III’s heart stopped from a fentanyl overdose, a story his sister Jasmine shared Wednesday in the office of Republican Sen. Rob Portman, as part of a larger push by progressive activists […]