Millions of Americans Donate through Crowdfunding Sites to Help Others Pay for Medical Bills
Approximately 50 million—or 20 percent—of American adults reported donating to a crowdfunding campaign to help raise money for a medical bill or treatment. Via NORC at the University of Chicago One in five Americans reported that they or someone in their household have contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to pay for medical bills or treatments, […]
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 […]
The Collapse Of A Hospital Empire — And Towns Left In The Wreckage
By Barbara Feder Ostrov and Lauren Weber for Kaiser Health News SWEET SPRINGS, Mo. — The money was so good in the beginning, and it seemed it might gush forever, right through tiny country hospitals in Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and into the coffers of companies controlled by Jorge A. Perez, his family and business partners. […]
UVA Suspends Medical Lawsuits In Wake Of KHN Investigation
By Jay Hancock and Carmen Heredia Rodriguez for Kaiser Health News CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Under pressure after Kaiser Health News reported Monday that it sues thousands of patients a year and sends many into bankruptcy, University of Virginia Health System suspended about a dozen patient lawsuits Thursday and said it will announce changes to its […]
Why we need Single-Payer Medicare-for-All
By Dr. Jay D. Brock for Fredricksburg.com If you think America has the greatest health care system in the world, think again: $500 billion-plus is wasted each year in administrative, marketing, overhead, and profit costs, more than Germany, France, or Japan spend on their health care systems. 600,000 hardworking American families (most with health insurance) […]
Growing trend for bankruptcy for seniors
Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy: Fallout from Life in a Risk Society By Deborah Thorne, Pamela Foohey, Robert M. Lawless & Katherine Porter for PNHP The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been off-loaded onto older […]
New medical bankruptcy study: Two-thirds of filers cite illness and medical bills as contributors to financial ruin
Researchers found no evidence that the ACA reduced the proportion of bankruptcies driven by medical problems; insurance offered little protection to middle-class Americans. By David U. Himmelstein, M.D, Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H and Clare Fauke for PNHP Medical problems contributed to 66.5% of all bankruptcies, a figure that is virtually unchanged since before the passage […]
Ex-UN chief Ban Ki-moon says US healthcare system is ‘morally wrong’
Exclusive: Former UN secretary general accuses ‘powerful’ health interests in the US of blocking universal healthcare By Jessica Glenza for The Guardian The former United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has denounced the United States’ healthcare system as politically and morally wrong, and urged American leaders to enact publicly financed healthcare as a “human right”. […]
Solidarity With Medical Students Who Demand Single Payer Now: An Open Letter
By Students for a National Health Program We, the undersigned, stand together with medical students as they pressure organized medicine to support a single, comprehensive health care system for everyone in America. At the American Medical Association’s annual conference in June, medical students demanded the organization end its decades-long opposition to a single-payer national health […]