Elisabeth Rosenthal

Author's posts

Analysis: One Sure Thing About COVID-19: No Telling How Many People Have It

In an era when we get flash-flood warnings on phones, potentially vital, lifesaving knowledge is being kept under wraps.

Analysis: Who Profits From Steep Medical Bills? The People Tasked With Fixing Them.

Surprise bills are just the latest weapons in a decades-long war among health care industry players over who gets to keep the fortunes generated each year from patient illness: $3.6 trillion in 2018. The practice is an outrage, yet no one in the health care sector wants to unilaterally make the type of big concessions that would change things.

No Masking The Best Way To Avoid The Scary Coronavirus: Wash Your Hands

While covering the SARS outbreak as a reporter in China, KHN’s editor-in-chief saw that common sense is the best defense against viral illness.

Analysis: In Medical Billing, Fraudulent Charges Weirdly Pass As Legal

After my husband had a bike accident, we were subjected to medical bills that no one would accept if they had been delivered by a contractor, or a lawyer or an auto mechanic. Such charges are sanctioned by insurers, which generally pay because they have no way to know whether you received a particular item or service — and it’s not worth their time to investigate the millions of medical interactions they write checks for each day.

Analysis: Elizabeth Warren Throws Down The Gauntlet

She has led the way, but all the candidates need to come clean about their health care proposals.

Analysis: How Your Beloved Hospital Helps To Drive Up Health Care Costs

It’s easy to criticize pharmaceutical and insurance companies. But we spend much more on hospitals.

Analysis: Why Alexa’s Bedside Manner Is Bad For Health Care

Amazon’s personal assistant is gaining medical skills to provide coaching or transmit and monitor patient data. Besides the loss of the human touch, virtual medicine pursued in the name of business efficiency or profit bodes ill.

Analysis: A Health Care Overhaul Could Kill 2 Million Jobs, And That’s OK

Reform has a cost. But the point of a health care system is to treat patients, not to buttress the economy.