A new HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) study finds that one in four people with Medicare were harmed in hospital in 2018. As a result, they experienced worse health outcomes. The study...
Diane Archer
Poll: Prescription drug prices in 2022
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently polled Americans for their views on prescription drug prices. Here’s what they learned: What proportion of the US population takes prescription...
Could the US lower drug costs through “value-based”...
President Biden said in his State of the Union address that he supported Medicare drug price negotiation. Since the Democrats in Congress appear unable to pass legislation that would allow Medicare...
Medicare: 2020 facts and figures
Today, Medicare covers 65 million older and disabled Americans. What does that mean for the US budget, national health care spending and the future of Medicare? A new Kaiser Family Foundation...
Socialized medicine v. incremental improvements
For the last several decades, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, the founders of Physicians for a National Health Care Program, have been ardent advocates of a “single-payer”...
OIG finds widespread inappropriate care denials in Medicare...
A new HHS Office of the Inspector General report (OIG) highlights serious problems with denials of care and coverage in Medicare Advantage. As the OIG found in 2018, tens of thousands of people in...
Ingredients for living a good long life
Morey Stettner reports for MarketWatch on the ingredients for increasing your chances of living a good long life. Follow the science around nutrition and exercise. And, while genes help, don’t...
With Medicare private plans, your costs are unpredictable
With Medicare private plans, be they Medicare Advantage plans or Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, your costs are unpredictable. The corporate health insurers offering these health plans are...
Coronavirus: Older adults without booster shots are still at...
The latest COVID-19 data reveal that vaccines are not enough to protect many older adults from serious illness if they have the virus. Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating report for The Washington Post...
Can Congress incentivize drugmakers to lower insulin prices...
Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Susan Collins think they have a way to bring down the price of insulin without needing to pass legislation regulating its price. Stat News reports that their proposal...