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Debt collectors! In the hospital! Posing as normal people - like you and me! In case you missed it, the NY Times broke a story last week out of Minnesota about a practice that is becoming more and more common around the country: Hospitals that are embedding debt collectors as employees to try and get patients to [...]
Filed under: ACA, Federal health reform, Medical debt, Underinsured, Uninsured | Tagged: ACA, hospital care, medical bills | Comments Off
Earlier this month, we covered a new report on hospital financial assistance released by the Community Service Society. This report has been making waves since its release, so anyone who is interested in learning more on the topic now has a few more options to do so. Elisabeth Benjamin, one of the report’s authors, recently appeared on Democracy Now! with [...]
Filed under: Accountability, Affordable, Consumer Assistance, Medical debt, Underinsured, Uninsured | Tagged: hospital care, Immigrants, medical bills | Comments Off
We’ve all been there. You try and pop a wheelie to impress your girlfriend and instead fall off your bike and bust your head. Or, perhaps you wake up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in your side and a raging fever. A dull knife and a slippery onion. Black ice. Sometimes, you don’t even remember what [...]
Filed under: Accountability, Affordable, Consumer Assistance, Insurance reform, Medical debt, Underinsured | Tagged: hospital care, insurance, medical bills | Comments Off
PBS Newshour had a great little segment last night on a project out of Colorodo aimed at improving health among the Latino population. This is done by delivering public health messages via telenovelas. For those of you who may not have grown up watching Univision or Telemundo, telenovelas are basically like soap operas, but way better. They have [...]
Filed under: Consumer Assistance, Immigrants, Medical debt, Underinsured, Women, young adult | Tagged: cool stuff, Immigrants, insurance, women's health | Comments Off
An interesting new study is now out by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The study took the opportunity presented by a small Medicaid expansion that Oregon underwent in 2008. At that time, the state decided it was able to add 10,000 more enrollees. However, nearly 90,000 people actually applied. The 10,000 that the state was able [...]
Filed under: Medicaid, Medical debt | Tagged: Federal deficit, Medicaid | Comments Off
While most of us were glued to the proceedings of yesterday’s Exchange hearing in NYC yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg was busy surprising us all by producing and launching New York City’s first offical prescription drug discount card. According to city officials, the BigAppleRx card is now available to anyone regardless of age, income, citizenship or health insurance status and can be used by [...]
Filed under: Affordable, Drugs, Medical debt, Underinsured, Uninsured | Tagged: prescription drugs | Comments Off
Last Friday night, Governor Paterson signed into law a measure that will help keep down the cost of co-pays for expensive drugs in private insurance plans. Across the country, many health plans have been moving towards the use of new “specialty tiers” for higher-priced drugs. These abandon the traditional three-tier $10/$25/$50 co-pay system in favor of [...]
Filed under: Affordable, Disability, Drugs, Insurance reform, Medical debt, Uninsured | Tagged: insurance | Comments Off
Filed under: Affordable, Children, Comprehensive Coverage, Employer Sponsored Health Insurance, Immigrants, Insurance reform, Medicaid, Medical debt, Medicare, Premiums, Small Business, Underinsured, Uninsured, Women, young adult | Comments Off
Give Credit Where Credit Is Due! Join New York advocacy groups and trade unions to thank our members of Congress for their support of health care reform. Tomorrow’ rally will celebrate the new health care reform law and thank all members of NYC Congressional delegation who voted for it WHEN: Thursday, April 1st, 11 a.m. [...]
Filed under: Affordable, Children, Comprehensive Coverage, Employer Sponsored Health Insurance, Insurance reform, Medicaid, Medical debt, Premiums, Small Business, Underinsured, Uninsured, young adult | Comments Off
A new Public Policy and Education Fund (PPEF) “Race Matters” report looks at five major policy areas in the Executive Budget: health care, education, higher education, human services, and criminal and juvenile justice and determines that certain budget cuts will exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality in the state. The Health Snapshot: The Executive Budget also [...]
Filed under: Affordable, Comprehensive Coverage, Immigrants, Insurance reform, Medicaid, Medical debt, Premiums, Underinsured, Uninsured | Comments Off
