Opinion Column
Baucus Plan Is Harmful To Low-Income Workers
Broadening health coverage is a worthy goal, but the Senate Finance Committee proposal comes at a high price
All Coverage
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Domestic Abuse Victims Struggle with Another Blow: Difficulty Getting Health Insurance
While many states bar carriers from rejecting people who receive treatment for domestic violence, others permit it. Now there’s a move to prohibit the practice as part of a health care overhaul.
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Buying Insurance On The Individual Market
Freelance writer Cindy Richards buys insurance on the ‘individual market’ – from a broker – to cover herself and her son and daughter. Her husband had to buy a policy separately. Between them, they pay $500 a month in premium costs and have a yearly deductible of over $10,000. She believes it’s “too difficult” to get health insurance in America.
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Individual Market Explained
As a part of our “Are You Covered?” series, KHN and NPR examine how a health overhaul would affect the individual insurance market.
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Health Care Bills Would Expand Medicaid Eligibility
Both the House and Senate health care proposals would expand Medicaid eligibility to about 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Although the measures would help the states cover the costs, governors are worried that the additional federal money simply won’t be enough. KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey offers her insight.
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On Their Own, Self-Employed Search For Health Care
Cindy Richards and her husband Scott Fisher at their home in Oak Park, Ill. Richards is a freelance writer and editor who buys health insurance to cover herself and her family.
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‘Facility Fees’ Are Surprise Cost For Many Patients
Facility fees, charged to patients who get treatment in hospital-owned outpatient clinics, are used defray to hospital overhead, pay salaries and meet stringent standards, hospital officials say. Critics say the fees are a way to increase the cost of care when patients can least afford it.
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Medicaid Explained
As a part of our “Are You Covered?” series, KHN and NPR examine how a health overhaul would affect Medicaid recipients.
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For One Senior, Medicaid Provides Model Care
When Gracie Scarrow, 94, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure she didn’t have the money to pay for the care she needed. With her daughter Lela’s help, Gracie turned to Medicaid. The program pays for her nursing home, and they couldn’t be happier with the care.
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Transcript: Health On The Hill – How Will Senate Committees Combine Health Bills?
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and Eric Pianin discuss what might happen in the Senate Finance Committee this week and how its health overhaul bill might be combined with the more liberal bill from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
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Health On The Hill – Senate Finance Committee To Vote On Health Bill
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey and Eric Pianin discuss the Senate Finance Committee’s vote later this week on a health overhaul bill and how that bill might be melded with the more liberal bill from the Senate health committee.
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Opinion Column
To Be Effective, Exchanges Need Bargaining Power
Exchange design doesn’t get the attention of controversies like the public option, abortion, or supposed death panels. In the long run, though, it could be far more decisive in whether reform works.
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Uninsured By Choice: A ‘Calculated Risk’
Lyn Robinson owns Zenith Holland Gardens, a wholesale plant nursery. She chooses not to buy insurance and says she likes deciding where and when to spend her medical dollars. Part of our series “Are You Covered?” co-produced with NPR.
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Voluntarily Uninsured
Fifty-two year old Lyn Robinson says she works out, takes good care of herself and doesn’t think she needs to buy health insurance.
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Will Insurers Balk At Weakening of Individual Insurance Mandate?
The Senate Finance Committee Thursday agreed to delay the penalties for people who don’t comply with a requirement to have health insurance. Some lawmakers want no penalties at all. But insurers worry that weakening the mandate will mean people will delay getting coverage, it would be more difficult to keep costs down.
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Grady’s Challenges Highlight Problems of Safety-Net Hospitals
The cornerstone of Atlanta medical care strives to turn a corner, but fight over dialysis center underscores difficulties of meeting increasing demands in a poor economy.
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Health Care Bill or No, Medicare Advantage Premiums Will Rise
Miami seniors will still pay nothing for coverage; rates to rise in New York and Philadelphia.
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Frist Predicts Congress Will Approve a $1 Trillion Health Care Bill That Won’t “Bend The Cost Curve”
KHN’s Eric Pianin talks with former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., about his new book, “A Heart to Serve, The Passion to Bring Health, Hope, and Healing.”
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Study: Young Docs Stumped By Health Care System, Too
Fewer than half of all graduating medical students say they have a good sense of how to navigate health care systems or the economics of practicing medicine, according to a new study.
