Listen: Cheap Health Insurance Isn’t Always Cheap
Across the country, people are choosing lower monthly premiums in exchange for higher out-of-pocket risk. Reporter Jackie Fortiér explains what the shift means for Americans’ health and wallets.
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Across the country, people are choosing lower monthly premiums in exchange for higher out-of-pocket risk. Reporter Jackie Fortiér explains what the shift means for Americans’ health and wallets.
An Arm and a Leg launches its “101” series with the story of Alfred Engelberg, a lawyer who’s been crusading to improve access to generic drugs by fixing loopholes in a law he helped draft more than 40 years ago.
Physicians, dentists, and other nonhospital providers account for more than 80% of health care debt collection cases in Connecticut courts, a CT Mirror-ϳԹ News investigation finds.
ϳԹ News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
With high demand for mental health care, a wave of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots are being marketed as therapy apps — with little evidence they work and few regulations.
Lower premiums often mean higher costs when you get sick and need care. Among the ways to plan ahead and soften the financial hit: health savings accounts, which act like a medical piggy bank.
ϳԹ News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner recently made the radio rounds to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of her appearances.
This week, the Trump administration won a court battle to delay a ruling on access to the abortion pill mifepristone, angering its own anti-abortion allies. Meanwhile, the president’s budget arrived on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are unlikely to agree to its proposed cuts to Health and Human Services programs. Lauren Weber of The Washington Post, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Maya Goldman of Axios join ϳԹ News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
Fourteen states now allow health coverage through state farm bureaus. Though they generally share many features of Affordable Care Act marketplace plans, they aren’t insurance. Neither are they typically subject to federal or state health insurance requirements, and the benefits may be less generous or predictable than those of Obamacare plans.
When the only clinic that offered abortions in Michigan’s rural Upper Peninsula closed, an urgent care facility stepped in to fill the gap. Now, others are considering similar moves as brick-and-mortar clinics close in blue states.
Montana was on track to start reimbursing doulas, who support new and expectant parents, through Medicaid this year. But state officials halted that plan amid a budget shortfall. Other such services deemed optional under Medicaid are at risk nationwide as states brace for federal cuts.
Rosa María Carranza has worked and paid taxes for more than two decades, but a provision in the GOP's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will make her and an estimated 100,000 other lawfully present immigrant seniors ineligible for Medicare. Now Carranza’s once secure retirement is in question.
ϳԹ News journalists made the rounds on national and local media recently to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
North Carolina rolled out a $3.1 billion insurance plan for kids in foster care, but many doctors did not accept patients on the plan. The state is one of several experimenting with a model that has left kids’ guardians scrambling to find health care providers.
About 17,000 federally funded health clinics stand to collectively lose $32 billion under GOP-backed fiscal policies in the next five years — just as more uninsured patients will rely on them for low-cost care.
ϳԹ News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add red tape and restrictions for those seeking Medicaid and SNAP benefits. And the costs to update computer systems that determine eligibility for those programs will be steep.
When medical bills started rolling in, a teacher’s aide in Florida wondered why her insurance suddenly wasn’t covering them. The answer? She owed a balance of 5 cents, so her insurer canceled her policy.
The Trump administration faces the challenge of naming a new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who can both satisfy the Make America Healthy Again movement and get confirmed by the Senate. Meanwhile, a new Senate bill to rescind the approval of the abortion pill mifepristone is again elevating the abortion debate, which some Republicans would prefer to stay on the back burner until after the midterms. Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Lizzy Lawrence of Stat, and Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Bloomberg News join ϳԹ News’ Julie Rovner to discuss the news. Also this week, Rovner interviews Georgetown University Law Center’s Katie Keith about the state of the Affordable Care Act on its 16th anniversary.
Two Americans explain how the skyrocketing cost of health insurance influenced their decision to buy — or skip — health insurance in 2026.
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