Medical debt imposes a crushing burden on millions of Americans. More than 40 percent of Americans owe medical debt, with 18 percent owing $2,500 or more.
Concerned by this issue, states and local governments have passed or are considering programs to fund debt relief. On Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced a plan to eliminate $1 billion in medical debt per year. This adds to more than $12 billion in passed or proposed medical debt relief by 20 other states or local ...
healthcare
Remove the barriers keeping women from addressing colorectal cancer
This may be a month of fun and festivities with St. Patrick’s Day rolling right into March Madness, but it also commemorates two serious topics: women’s history and colorectal awareness. While the overlap may be purely coincidental, the timing appropriately underscores the need for improved awareness, screening and treatment for colorectal cancer, especially among women.
Though overall rates of new colorectal cancer cases have declined in the past decade or two, cases among pe...
Matthews: Autocrats gonna mandate: health insurance, vaccines, EVs and more
The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are denying that recent EPA regulations are meant to mandate that everyone switch from gas-powered to an electric vehicle (EV). Don’t you believe ’em. Progressive elites rely on the power of government to force you to do what they think you should be doing. In other words, autocrats gonna mandate.
We’ve seen this movie before. Recall that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) went into effect 10 years ago. O...
Biden touts health care wins, but Bidenomics is driving health care costs higher
In his recent state of the union address, President Biden hailed his health care accomplishments, boasting that this year a record 20 million Americans signed up for health insurance through Affordable Care Act health plans.
What the president failed to mention is that average premiums for these plans have more than doubled since 2014. And average deductibles — the amount you must pay before your insurance kicks in — are up nearly 60 percent.
Does that sound affordab...
With solar, we can solve non-profit hospitals’ carbon and community benefit problem simultaneously
Hospitals account for a significant amount of health care’s enormous 550 million metric ton greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. That is largely because hospitals are remarkably energy inefficient.
In 2023, just 37 — substantially less than 1 percent — were Energy Star certified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Scope 1 and 2 energy efficiency. The innumerable and unrelenting health harms associated with GHG emissions disproportionately harm Medicare and Medicaid b...
There are better ways to address drug costs than importing socialized medicine
Today, Johnson & Johnson, Merk and Bristol Myers Squibb are testifying in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Listening to what the drugmaker executives have to say about medicine prices would ordinarily be a valuable exercise. But under the proverbial interrogation lamp of HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the proceedings will be more akin to the Salem witch trials.
The committee hearing is set to focus on price disc...
US hospitals receive billions in funding — but where does it actually go?
Most American hospitals were established as either municipal or charitable organizations, with a commitment to providing free and discounted medical care to the poor. This responsibility is now recognized in federal law, aided by substantial public subsidies.
However, the magnitude of state and federal subsidies to support hospitals now substantially exceeds the value of “uncompensated care” that facilities provide to the uninsured.
As a new Manhat...
10 years in, the Medicaid expansion is failing the neediest Americans
As we mark the 10th anniversary of the first expansions of states’ Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, which began in January 2014, it’s time to think again about the effects on the most vulnerable in our society.
Consider, for example, what is unfolding in North Carolina.
Last month, it became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the ACA, opening the program to an estimated 600,000 adults who, while relatively low-income earners,...
In 2023, progress against physician-assisted suicide
As we glance back at 2023, opponents of physician assisted suicide can reflect on a year marked by unwavering opposition and quiet victories in our fight. While the legislative landscape was busy with bills introduced in more than a dozen states, it has been more than two years since any new assisted suicide laws were enacted in the U.S.
These victories are not a sign of surrender by suicide proponents, but rather a sign of the persuasiveness of the arguments against it and th...
Fee-for-service healthcare is making us sick
More than 1.3 billion adults globally will have diabetes by 2050, according to a study released this year. In the U.S., our current health system — which is structured around treatment, not prevention — is woefully unprepared to deal with this reality.
For over 150 years, the U.S. healthcare infrastructure has centered on symptoms, doctors and treatments — not on patients. From our data collection to our systems design and payment models, it’s more profitable to treat sick pat...