T.K. Dutes — a former nurse who is now a radio host and podcast-maker — interviewed ‘An Arm and a Leg’ host Dan Weissmann about what he learned in 2020, and what’s ahead for the show.
Category: Insurance
Many Health Plans Now Must Cover Full Cost of Expensive HIV Prevention Drugs
Most private insurance will be required to cover drugs, like Truvada, that offer protection against HIV infection, without making plan members share the cost.
Hospital Prices Just Got a Lot More Transparent. What Does This Mean for You?
Under a rule that kicked in Jan. 1, hospitals are required to make public the prices they negotiate with insurers. That’s a lot more information than was previously required, which was only the posting of “chargemasters” — the hospital-generated list prices that few consumers or health plans actually pay.
Democrats Are Running Hard on Health Care in Georgia’s Senate Runoffs. Republicans? Not So Much.
Democrats are treating health care as a more critical issue than their Republican counterparts in Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoffs. It’s a strategy they hope will woo independents and motivate base voters. The results will determine which party controls the chamber during the first years of the Biden administration.
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: All I Want for Christmas Is a COVID Relief Bill
Congress seems on the verge of finishing a long-delayed COVID-19 relief bill, which will reportedly include neither of the things each party wanted most — for Republicans, liability protections; for Democrats, funding for states and localities. That bill is likely to be tied to a package to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year and, possibly, include a fix for “surprise” medical bills that patients receive when they inadvertently receive care outside their insurance network. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rebecca Adams of CQ Roll Call and Mary Agnes Carey of KHN join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner talks to Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of the Pacific Business Group on Health, about the future of employer-provided health insurance.
‘An Arm and a Leg’: Shopping for Health Insurance? Here’s How One Family Tried to Pick a Plan
Host Dan Weissmann gives us an inside look at his family’s quest to pick health insurance for next year. COVID-19 makes it more complicated.
With Becerra as HHS Pick, California Plots More Progressive Health Care Agenda
Gov. Gavin Newsom said he has already begun discussing California health care priorities with Xavier Becerra, tapped this week by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as his Health and Human Services secretary.
Xavier Becerra in His Own Words: ‘Health Care Is a Right’
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. As attorney general and during his 24 years in Congress, he has staked progressive positions on health care issues, fighting the Trump administration on contraception, suing a major California health system for monopolistic behavior and calling himself a supporter of single-payer health care.
Trump Rule Gives Small Companies a New Tool to Help Workers Buy Health Coverage
Instead of taking on the expense of traditional health plans, some small businesses are setting up an “individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement” that allows them to give workers money to put toward comprehensive coverage on the individual insurance market. But consumer advocates are concerned they may shortchange some workers.
During ACA Open Enrollment, Picking a Plan Invites New COVID Complications
COVID-19’s “long haulers” — patients with lingering effects of the disease — have joined the ranks of Americans with preexisting conditions. For those shopping for health coverage on the individual market, here’s help navigating an uncharted insurance landscape.
