When my sister, Kimberly, was two years old, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. As she was fighting for her life, my parents were fighting to protect their family.
My mom and dad spent every dollar they had on Kimberly's medical expenses as she quickly maxed out her lifetime cap on health insurance.
Kimberly died at age 21, and my parents spent years trying to pay off the debt incurred from her medical expenses. No parent should have to grieve th...
healthcare
England’s strained health care system should ring alarms in the US
The National Health Service in England, founded in 1948 to deliver health care directly to all in need following World War II, is in trouble.
Not only is it broke, but it is also broken, as the new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer just pointed out in response to a recent government study.
The waiting lines for care are prohibitive. A recent study revealed that 8 million people in the United Kingdom are waiting for their care, with 40 percent waiting for more than...
Price transparency is key to reducing health care costs
Health care has emerged as a fault line in this year's election campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris supports expanding the Affordable Care Act, while former President Donald Trump wants to scale it back. Yet there's one health care policy that the Biden-Harris and Trump administrations both supported and can coalesce around again: price transparency.
This bipartisan health care fix is supported by 92 percent of Americans, according to a new poll by Echelon In...
Affordable Care Act tax credits work despite fraud and should be expanded
A controversial analysis authored by a long-time critic of the Affordable Care Act claims that a policy that expanded and improved Health Insurance Marketplace premium tax credits for 20 million Americans should be discontinued due to fraud. Fraudulent insurance enrollment by some insurance companies and their agents should be — and is being — targeted by the administration and Congress.
But saying that fraudulent enrollment makes the tax credit unsuccessful skirts...
Reforming 340B vital for affordable medication for low-income patients
When the 340B drug pricing program was established in 1992, Congress intended for the program to help low-income and uninsured patients with their prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical companies whose drugs are covered by Medicaid are required to participate in the program, offering discounts for drugs to patients on average at 25 to 50 percent of the wholesale acquisition cost.
Unfortunately, today, the 340B program is failing those it was meant to serve. There i...
Trump’s spectacle is no match for Harris’s substance
This election isn’t just another political match — it’s a reckoning.
For years, Donald Trump has masqueraded as the champion of the working class, a man of the people with a golden touch for business and so-called "common-sense" solutions.
But let’s be real: The Trump campaign is a fraud. His faux populism is nothing more than a cynical con, wrapped in flag-waving theatrics and reality TV spectacle. While he posed for photo ops and riled up his b...
To repair our fiscal foundation, we need to bend the health care cost curve
Willie Sutton famously explained (in a possibly apocryphal quotation) that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” If he turned his attention to the federal budget, he’d start with health care.
Our total national debt has ballooned to nearly $35 trillion – the highest level in U.S. history. This translates to over a quarter of a million dollars — $265,838 to be exact — of accumulated liabilities for every American household.
Washington now spends abou...
Preventive care is under threat: PrEP now or pay later
A long-awaited court decision has finally arrived, with disturbing health implications: The ruling exempts select employers from fully covering a daily pill that can prevent a person’s chances of getting HIV by up to 99 percent.
But the effects of the Braidwood Management v. Becerra case extend beyond HIV care. The case could invalidate a startling range of free preventative services, and lead to a big jump in patient’s payments for cancer screenings, preventive drugs for hear...
The real reason drug costs are so high in America
Earlier this month, President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) published an oped about “the outrageous prices that the pharmaceutical industry charges the American people for prescription drugs.” It is the latest step in Sanders's ongoing campaign about drug prices.
In June, Sanders, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, announced that Lars Jorgensen, chief executive officer of Novo Nordisk, one of the world’s largest pharmaceu...
The real reason drug costs are so high in America
Earlier this month, President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) published an oped about “the outrageous prices that the pharmaceutical industry charges the American people for prescription drugs.” It is the latest step in Sanders's ongoing campaign about drug prices.
In June, Sanders, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, announced that Lars Jorgensen, chief executive officer of Novo Nordisk, one of the world’s largest pharmaceu...