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NEWS ABOUT: health care costs

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Kennedy: Fix Health Care Now

Don't let economic crisis blind us to broken system

(Newser) - The economy may be gasping, but that doesn’t give us a prescription to neglect health care, Ted Kennedy writes. “We must forge ahead with this urgent priority. The system is broken,” he writes in a Washington Post op-ed. The liberal lion points to recent signs that reform... More »

Docs Stop Taking Insurance, Offer 'Boutique' Care

More doctors offer "boutique" care to make ends meet, provide better service

(Newser) - Increasing numbers of doctors are bagging the insurance model to offer much better service to fewer patients, at a much higher cost, the Baltimore Sun reports. Many doctors are struggling to pay their own bills, and the quality of service they offer patients is suffering. But such “boutique” care... More »

Health Care Should Be More Like Baseball

We need better statistics to make sound judgments

(Newser) - If the US health care industry were a baseball team, it’d be “a hidebound, tradition-based ball club that chases after aging sluggers,” write Billy Beane, John Kerry, and Newt Gingrich in the New York Times. The US spends egregiously on health care but gets little in return,... More »

C-Sections, Wary Docs Push Birth Costs Up

Report is critical of high-tech methods, urges natural ones

(Newser) - Spending on childbirth—the country's No. 1 reason for hospitalization—is on the rise, and much of it is due to unnecessary tests and procedures, USA Today reports. A new study critical of the system found that $2.5 billion is spent annually on needless high-tech C-sections, which cost more... More »

Teen Abortion Rate Drops; Not So With Adults

Economic factors put 20-somethings at risk, study finds

(Newser) - US teenagers are having fewer abortions than ever before, but their adult counterparts can’t say the same, Newsweek reports. According to a new, nonpartisan study, teen abortions have fallen almost 30% over the past 30 years, as millions of dollars were pumped into sex-education programs. But women aged 20-29... More »

US Health Costs to Rise 5.7% in '09

Insurance costs go up for 4th straight year

(AP) - Get ready for another increase in co-pays and deductibles. A survey being released today found that 59% of employers intend to keep down rising health care costs by sharing them with workers. Costs will go up by an average 5.7% for both parties next year, rising faster than inflation... More »

Patients Paying $1B in Medical Bills They Don't Owe

Health-care providers engage in illegal practice to get funds

(Newser) - Millions of patients throughout the country are footing the bill for medical payments they don’t owe, BusinessWeek reports. In a practice known as balance billing, health-care providers stick weary patients with the cost of their treatment not covered by insurers. The practice is often illegal, but, according to estimates,... More »

Man Steals Identity to Fund Heart Surgery

Mentally-disabled friend billed for buddy's $350,000 operation

(Newser) - A Chicago man allegedly nicked the identity of a mentally disabled friend to fund a $350,000 heart bypass operation, say police. John Parsons, 57, was sure he would die without the surgery, said a relative; the alleged scam was uncovered after a caregiver began receiving copies of expenses billed... More »

The Win-Win Economics of Medical Tourism

Growing trend of traveling for health care doesn't have to hurt anyone

(Newser) - The spread of “medical tourism”—uninsured and underinsured patients seeking cheap health care in Southeast Asia or Latin America—has fueled fears that developing nations will divert resources from state health systems caring for their own citizens. But, the Economist argues, “if governments make the best of... More »

Many Hospitals Deport Injured, Ill Immigrants

Guatemalan man at center of benchmark case

(Newser) - The case of an illegal immigrant from Guatemala has called attention to a little-known, but common, practice at US hospitals: the deportation of immigrants without insurance. Injured in a car accident, the immigrant spent years at a Florida hospital before being repatriated by court order, the New York Times reports.... More »

US Health Care Stinks: Study

Huge inefficiencies put American system last among 19 developed nations

(Newser) - The US health care system gets dismal grades in a ranking of 19 industrialized countries, Reuters reports. A private foundation looked at key indicators like efficiency and access, and found the US did very poorly despite spending the most money—putting it last on the list. Health-care dollars were squandered... More »

US Insurers Warming to Medical Tourism

Sending patients to India, elsewhere could save $20B a year

(Newser) - If you’re in need of high-priced surgery, your insurance company might have a plane ticket for you. Insurers are starting to warm to “medical tourism” for the same reason uninsured Americans are: Surgery is significantly cheaper overseas. At least 150,000 Americans go abroad for medical procedures every... More »

Health Care Costs to US Manufacturers Skyrocket

US employers pay double the price foreign companies do

(Newser) - The cost of providing health insurance to US workers is rising so fast it can't be passed along either to workers or customers, a new study reported in the Los Angeles Times finds. Manufacturers now spend, on average, $2.38 per worker per hour—more than twice as much as... More »

Health Costs Hurt Insured Americans, Too

More cut back on doctor visits to save much-needed bucks

(Newser) - Even Americans with health insurance are ducking the doctor these days as health costs rise and the economy stays queasy, the New York Times reports. Family premiums have doubled in recent years, and out-of-pocket costs have gone up, too: “It just keeps eating into people’s income,” said... More »

Critics: Nonprofit Hospitals Unhealthily Rich

Tax breaks not paid back in community benefits

(Newser) - Nonprofit hospitals are making more money than for-profit hospitals, and that has many critics wondering why they get such sweet tax breaks, the Wall Street Journal reports. Seventy-seven percent of nonprofits are making money, with at least 25 pulling in more than $250 million a year. Many are spending that... More »

Rising Cost of Essentials Slams Poor Families

Prices of "core" items are rising twice as fast as wages

(Newser) - The rising price of essentials and sluggish growth in wages mean that inflation is hitting low- to middle-income families hardest, the Washington Post reports. Americans are paying 9.2% more for staples—groceries, gas, health care, etc.— than they did in 2006, nearly twice the pace of the growth... More »

Faithfull Shines in Irina Palm

1960s icon plays a grandma-turned-sex-worker

(Newser) - Irina Palm, about a frumpy grandmother who resorts to prostitution so she can pay for her desperately ill grandson's operation, is winning over critics, both because of its unsentimental portrayal of the sex trade and because of the performance given by its star, singer/songwriter/actress and '60s icon Marianne Faithfull. More »

US Health Care Spending Tops Record $2T

Medicare jumps record 19% with new drug subsidy

(Newser) - US health-care spending in 2006 increased 6.7% to a record $2.1 trillion—an average of  $7,000 for every person in America. Medicare spending jumped 19%, its fastest growth rate in 25 years, according to the latest government statistics published yesterday in the journal Health Affairs. The Medicare... More »

Take 2 and IM Him in the Morning

Brooklyn general practitioner does much of his business in cyberspace

(Newser) - Eschewing traditional practice, a Brooklyn doctor is using the Internet to generate and conduct much of his business, Yahoo News reports. For $500, patients get three yearly examinations from Jay Parkinson, and can email or text him during the business day. "I'm not so much an online doctor,"... More »

Clinics Test Prepaid Health Plans

Flat-rate programs aim to take up slack for uninsured, underinsured

(Newser) - Primary care is increasingly out of reach for patients and unprofitable for physicians, but a prepaid plan at a walk-in clinic could provide a solution, one doctor says. Vic Wood charges a monthly fee for basic and urgent care, allowing his practice to stay afloat and his uninsured patients to... More »

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