Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. Solo Agers, Join the Crowd! Enjoyed your panel discussion (Watch: ‘Going It Alone’ — A Conversation About Growing Old in America, Dec. 12). I am 85, retired at 55. Traveled (birding)…
Over 6½ years ago, KFF Health News and NPR kicked off “Bill of the Month,” a crowdsourced investigation highlighting the impact of medical bills on patients. The goal was to understand how the U.S. health care system generates outsize bills and to empower patients with strategies to avoid them. We asked readers and listeners to…
It seems simple: Require hospitals and insurers to post their negotiated prices for most health care services and — bingo — competition follows, yielding lower costs for consumers. But nearly four years after the first Trump administration’s regulations forced hospitals to post massive amounts of pricing information online, the effect on patients’ costs is unclear….
Brad Kittredge is CEO of Brightside Health, which he co-founded with CMO Mimi Winsberg. They are a large online mental health group that aims a providing more access with higher quality. They have built their own technology stack and medical group, and are in network for about 135m lives. They also take patients from the…
A study by Fermaglich and Miller (2023) evaluated trends in orphan drug designations and approvals after the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 was passed in the US. The authors use FDA data to evaluate between 1983 and 2022 and find that: Over the 40 years of the ODA, 6,340 orphan drug designations were granted, representing…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A to…
Joining Matthew Holt on #THCBGang on Thursday December 19 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are three leaders in the patient movement Hugo Campos (@HugoCampos); Gilles Frydman (@GillesFrydman); and ePatient Dave deBronkart (@DavedeBronkart). They will be bring us up to speed on the very latest in patients using AI. You can see the video below live…
Las nuevas inscripciones bajo la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (ACA) parecen ser hasta un millón menos que el número récord del año pasado, especialmente por problemas con el programa que enfrenta la saliente administración Biden. La reelección de Donald Trump para un segundo mandato ha generado incertidumbre sobre el futuro de…
It’s open enrollment season for the Affordable Care Act — and there are ongoing challenges. First up, enrollment. New and returning sign-ups through healthcare.gov — the federal marketplace that serves 31 states — are well below last year’s rate. New enrollments were just over 730,000 in early December, compared with 1.5 million at the same time last year. To give consumers in those states more time to…
Tom Contos is an avid runner. When he started experiencing rectal bleeding in March, he thought exercise could be the cause and tried to ignore it. But he became increasingly worried when the bleeding continued for weeks. The Chicago health care consultant contacted his physician at Northwestern Medicine, who referred him for a diagnostic colonoscopy,…