Doctors and hospitals love to talk about the patients they’ve saved with precision medicine, and reporters love to write about them. But the people who die still vastly outnumber the rare successes.
The wide-ranging law has the potential to blindside many consumers whose health care comes from company and union health plans that are “self-funded,” meaning they pay claims out of their own funds.
Alec Raeshawn Smith was 23 when diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and 26 when he died. He couldn’t afford $1,300 per month for his insulin and other diabetes supplies. So he tried to stretch the doses.
Alec Raeshawn Smith was 23 when diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and 26 when he died. He couldn’t afford $1,300 per month for his insulin and other diabetes supplies. So he tried to stretch the doses.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, is set to hear arguments from Republican attorneys general who want him to strike down the federal health law and from Democratic counterparts who say the law is constitutional and should remain.
In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Joanne Kenen of Politico answer listeners’ questions about health policy and politics.
The column, which began in 2010 shortly after the federal health law was signed, helps explain how that law affected Americans. Michelle Andrews, the author, will continue to report for KHN.