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Medicare Advantage plans have little reason to address people’s long-term health needs By Diane Archer Published September 13, 2023   Nearly half of all Medicare Advantage members leave their Medicare Advantage plans within five years of enrolling, according to a recent study by David Meyers et al. at the Brown University School of Public Health […]

Patients Are Dying in Emergency Department Waiting Rooms By Alexander T. Janke, MD, MHS, Jennifer Tsai, MD, Med, and Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD Published February 19, 2023   A special session of Congress was called 35 years ago to make lawmakers and the public aware of stories of patients left to die in hospital parking

Medical Debt Is Killing Our Patients By Arvind Venkat, MD Published September 16, 2023   As an emergency medicine resident in the early 2000s, I cared for a patient in her early 60s with back pain. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), approximately 16% of emergency department patients were uninsured. Often

Facing higher health costs, employers get tough By Tina Reed, author of Axios Vital Published September 19, 2023   Employers girding themselves for an especially pricey health care benefits season this fall are pushing back harder in negotiations, armed with new price transparency data and emboldened by increased industry scrutiny.   Why it matters: Employers

Socialist Health Care Organizers Exit DSA By Scott Tucker and Larry Gross Published September 17, 2023   We are members of the Healthcare Justice Committee of the second largest chapter of the largest socialist group in the United States, namely the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-LA). We also work in

US Health Care Sucks, Even If You Have Health Insurance Interview with Amy Finkelstein, interviewed by Sara Van Horn and Cal Turner Published August 21, 2023   It is a gross injustice that 30 million Americans lack health insurance — but the insured also face serious problems, paying through the nose for substandard care. We

Medical debt hits the middle class hardest By Tami Luhby, CNN Published August 21, 2023   Almost a quarter of middle-class Americans, or 17 million people, had unpaid health care bills in 2020, a larger share than those higher and lower on the income scale, according to a new report from Third Way, a center-left

10 Things to Know About Medicaid Managed Care By Elizabeth Hinton and Jada Raphael March 1, 2023   Managed care is the dominant delivery system for Medicaid enrollees. With 72% of Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in comprehensive managed care organizations (MCOs) nationally, plans have played a key role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and are

The Hidden Fee Costing Doctors Millions Every Year by Cezary Podkul August 14, 2023   A powerful lobbyist convinced a federal agency that doctors can be forced to pay fees on money that health insurers owe them. Big companies rake in profits while doctors are saddled with yet another cost in a burdensome health care

U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes By Munira Z. Gunja, Evan D. Gumas and January 31, 2023   Introduction   In the previous edition of U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, we reported that people in the United States experience the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income