Americans’ out-of-pocket healthcare costs are skyrocketing

For the majority of Americans who receive health insurance through their employers, there is some good news and some bad news. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank addressing health policy issues, released its annual Employer Health Benefits Survey on Wednesday and looked at the cost of insurance for Americans. Based on the data Kaiser gathered, it appears that the hit …

Marcia Angell – How to provide Medicare for all

Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act, became law six years ago. The intention was to ensure that nearly all Americans have health insurance, while controlling costs. How did that work out? When the law was enacted, about 16 percent of Americans were uninsured. That has dropped to 10 percent. So instead of 50 million uninsured Americans, there are now about …

Obamacare’s 2017 Insurer Rate Requests Are Starting to Stream in, and the Figures Are Scary

It’s been more than two years since the Affordable Care Act, which you probably know better as Obamacare, went into full effect for individual consumers, and in that time the new health law has enrolled about 12.7 million people. Note that this doesn’t take into account the millions of Americans who’ve been able to get health insurance through the expansion …

Atul Gawande – Health Care’s Price Conundrum

The more expensive it is, the better it must be. That’s how people used to think about health-care costs. As has become apparent in recent years, however, this is flat wrong. The costs of care vary wildly depending on where you live—by three hundred per cent or more, as I reported in “The Cost Conundrum,” in 2009. And research has …

A Just Cause – Spotlight on Capitol Hill & Senator Mike Lee – 11.29.15

The host Cliff Stewart, Lisa Stewart and Lamont Banks talks to Our Special Guest Senator Mike Lee. Senator Mike Lee serves in the 114th Congress, beginning his tenure as Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee and currently serves on the on the Armed Services Committee, Joint Economic Committee, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and oversees issues critical to Utah as the Chairman of the Water and Power. As Utah’s 16th Senator, Mike Lee has spent his career defending the basic liberties of Americans and Utahns as a tireless advocate for our founding constitutional principles.

US health insurers seek huge rate increases for 2016 By Kate Randall

Health insurance companies across the US are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent and more, according to filings by the insurers with state insurance commissions. Insurance companies cite a larger than expected pool of unhealthy enrollees, high drug prices, and diminishing profits as contributing factors requiring the premium hikes. The rate increase requests are the latest demonstration …

Why America’s $2.9 Trillion Medical Industry Still Runs on Paper Payments by John Tozzi

Dealing with medical bills, like waiting for the cable guy or buying a used car, has become a cliché of consumer exasperation. Everything from electricity and phone bills to tax returns and parking tickets migrated to electronic payments years ago, but America’s $2.9 trillion health-care economy remains stubbornly stuck in the 1990s. The number of medical bills paid by paper check through the U.S. …

Big Pharma’s Unlikely Allies: Labor Unions Support Strong Intellectual Property Provisions In Trans-Pacific Partnership – Cole Stangler

When the top pharmaceutical lobby in the U.S. sponsored a Twitter chat on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in March of last year, labor unions trolled it hard. But not all unions are as repulsed by Big Pharma’s lobbying on trade. Some even support it. Seven different unions — the Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, Fire Fighters, Iron Workers, Plumbers and Sheet Metal Workers, …

“Independent” Study Finding that “MMR Vaccine Not Linked to Autism”, Published by Organization Working with Major Pharmaceutical Companies – Brandon Turbeville and Heather Callaghan

For those who may be critical of the process of vaccination, particularly its safety and effectiveness, it is a known fact that there has never been a study proving safety or effectiveness that was not linked to a pharmaceutical firm or vaccine maker.[1] Indeed, if vaccines were so easy to prove safe and effective, then certainly an entirely government-funded or …