Health Insurance and Costs

The stopgap bill approved by Congress this week will extend funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program for a few more months. That's far from what the program's supporters were hoping for.

The use of crowdfunding to cover medical costs has grown rapidly in recent years. The trend provides insights into gaps in health coverage, but also poses some problems health reporters should keep in mind.

A reporter set out to do a set of stories on the difficulties Merced County residents already faced in accessing care. Then, eight health clinics serving Medicaid patients in the county closed.

The closure was a big blow for Warren County, an area of the state considered a primary care desert, where doctors are few and patients are often forced to go without health care.

Community clinics in Los Angeles know they have to find new ways to get at the social factors that ultimately shape health if they're going to make a real difference in their patients' lives.

While the drug’s $94,500 cost puts it out of reach of the uninsured patients who use the Florida clinic, the drug’s maker provides it for free to qualified, low-income patients.

UC Irvine recently announced a $200 million gift to establish a new college of integrative medicine. The press coverage revealed a long-running bias from the media toward alternative therapies, one supporter argues.

From Singapore to England, every country that has more successfully managed health care costs than the U.S. has chosen a path of self-discipline and free-market restraints.

The opioid epidemic has given rise to an illicit gold rush as patient brokers and treatment centers profit off desperate addicts, funneling them to shoddy treatment centers and fraudulent “sober” homes at a profit of thousands per head.

While shoppers can often find health insurance with affordable premiums, many such plans carry deductibles and out-of-pocket costs that amount to severe punishment for anyone who falls ill.