Why are hospital “sticker prices” so high?

by Rob Cullen on January 26, 2012 - 2:50 PM

Right off the bat we should explain that the question is not, “why are medical costs are so high?” Answers to that are so varied and complicated you could devote almost an entire blog to it (ahem). Instead, this question is why there is such an enormous difference between two prices:

  • The “Sticker Price” – what the patient is charged by the hospital, and has to pay if he or she is uninsured
  • The “Insurer Price” - the heavily discounted price the insurer pays

There is a HUGE difference between these prices. In this post we’ll try to figure out why.   [click to continue reading...]

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Happy MLK Day: Martin Luther King’s best health care quotes

by Rob Cullen on January 16, 2012 - 12:32 PM

In honor of Dr. King’s birthday, we wanted to share some quotes from his speeches and writing that we feel are especially relevant to health care.   [click to continue reading...]

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When we talk about pre-existing conditions we tend to focus on problems with buying insurance on the individual market, where:

  • insurance companies can refuse to cover you;
  • insurers can charge you much more than healthy people; and
  • if you get sick, insurers can find ways to drop your coverage.

But it’s an issue that affects even those who are lucky enough to have decent coverage through an employer or government program. Knowing that they couldn’t afford or would be outright rejected for other coverage, many people with pre-existing medical conditions feel trapped in their current plans.

Health reform changed all that. Most of the bill doesn’t take effect for another two years, but there are a few parts that provide some immediate relief to people with health problems. To answer your question, we’ll look at new options for people with pre-existing conditions both right now and in 2014, once the law is fully in place.   [click to continue reading...]

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Top five health care stories of 2011

by Rob Cullen on January 3, 2012 - 10:01 AM

It’s been a weird year in health care coverage. Political fighting in Washington over issues like the debt ceiling, repealing health reform, and Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher plan got tons of coverage in the media– but at the end of the day, nothing really changed. Medicare and the Affordable Care Act are still intact, and deficit agreements that would have reduced health spending were blocked by Republicans.

Meanwhile, major health care stories outside of Washington that had a huge impact– like the famine in Somalia and major state-level changes in women’s access to abortion– went under-reported in the media.

And so, for our year end list, we present what we think were the real top five health stories of 2011.   [click to continue reading...]

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PolitiFact’s Opinion of the Year

by Rob Cullen on December 29, 2011 - 6:20 PM

PolitiFact calls it a lie, but is it really?

It’s that time of year again: the independent fact-checking site PolitiFact has chosen it’s third annual “Lie of the Year,” and once again it’s about healthcare. Here’s the timeline:

  • 2009: Sarah Palin’s lie about “death panels” in the health reform bill.
  • 2010: Republicans’ claim that health reform is a “government takeover of health care.”
  • 2011Perhaps hoping to avoid charges of partisan bias, PolitiFact chose a Democratic claim: that House “Republicans voted to end Medicare,” when they passed Paul Ryan’s budget.

This year’s is an odd choice though, for a simple reason– it’s not really a lie.

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New air pollution rule! How it will effect your health

by Rob Cullen on December 16, 2011 - 5:43 PM

Yesterday, in our look at where the EPA’s new air pollution rules stand, we forgot to mention a new one that slipped under our radar. This rule will help clean up some of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants.  Also, we’ll look at a bill Republicans are trying to pass to undermine the EPA. [click to continue reading...]

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Where are they now?: Air pollution rules edition

by Rob Cullen on December 15, 2011 - 1:51 PM

Now that world leaders have reached a new agreement on climate change (well… sort of, anyways), we figured now would be a good time to check back in on another environmental issue: the fate of three new air pollution rules from the EPA that we covered back in January.   [click to continue reading...]

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Is there a single-payer “bomb” in the health reform law?

by Rob Cullen on December 13, 2011 - 6:57 PM

"Try not panic, but there's a bomb on the health care bill!"

It’s hard to imagine a more boring headline than this one: “Department of Health and Human Services issues final regulation on medical loss ratio requirements under the Affordable Care Act.” But according to Rick Ungar, a blogger for Forbes magazine, these latest rules triggered “a bomb buried in Obamacare” placing us “on an inescapable path towards single-payer for most Americans.”

Wow. Well that got our attention. But is it true?   [click to continue reading...]

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Health Snapshots: Thanksgiving edition

by Rob Cullen on November 24, 2011 - 1:01 PM

In a special Thanksgiving edition of health snapshots: how to use economics to keep from overeating, reasons to be thankful for “Obamacare,” the truth about whether eating turkey makes you sleepy, and more!   [click to continue reading...]

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When health care giants collide: UPMC vs. Highmark

by Rob Cullen on November 14, 2011 - 3:43 PM

Every story needs a villain. In the story of the American healthcare system, that’s usually the insurance companies, who– by denying coverage to rape victims, obese babies, a breast cancer patient because she once had acne, and even over supposedly pre-existing conditions that patients never knew about– have managed to make themselves the most hated industry in the country.

But here’s the thing: they’re not the only villains… and sometimes they’re even working on our side. In this post we’ll look at a showdown in Pittsburgh, where one health insurer stepped in to save a struggling network of local hospitals. Now, a giant health system is trying to punish the insurer– with a move that would reduce access to care and drive up costs.   [click to continue reading...]

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