.jpg)
Opinion: Value-based payments are making it harder to see your primary care doctor on short notice
Difficulty scheduling an urgent or time-sensitive appointment is now the most common gripe my patients…
Category: health care costs
STAT+: A new paper suggests a simple fix to the primary care physician shortage
The U.S. is running low on primary care physicians, with an estimated shortage of between…
Opinion: The best way for the NIH to reduce drug prices is to address drug spending
As STAT reported recently, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) has…
Opinion: STAT+: What Mark Cuban gets wrong about prescription drugs
Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” star, has been making headlines recently…
Opinion: Public pharma is the best solution to the ongoing problem of drug shortages
Drug shortages in the United States are at a record high. At least 14 essential…
Opinion: Doctors need to pay more attention to non-physical side effects of health care
When faced with a new diagnosis, a patient knows that the necessary treatment may make…
Opinion: CMS change could slow the crucial growth of ‘food as medicine’
Sometimes, an apple a day really is just what the doctor ordered. And for the…
Opinion: The staggering financial burden of giving birth — even with insurance
The burden of high health care costs and medical debt in the U.S. is no…
Opinion: STAT+: How I’m helping companies think through whether they should cover GLP-1s like Ozempic for employees
We have a knack in the U.S. for blurring behavior and medicine. Look at weight….
STAT+: Fed up with exorbitant health costs, employers and workers are taking insurers to court
Companies, unions, and workers are at a breaking point over how much they pay for…
.jpg)
Opinion: Your health insurance may not be as good your state requires — and it’s perfectly legal
In 2017, the Massachusetts state Legislature passed a law to ensure ease of access to…
Opinion: Listen: Ezekiel Emanuel explains why cancer patients shouldn’t pay out-of-pocket costs
The high cost of cancer treatment in the U.S. is literally killing people. “Over a…
Opinion: Cancer patients shouldn’t be responsible for out-of-pocket costs
In 2023, just under 2 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. Many will endure…
“Patients are not hot potatoes”: How the fight over dialysis coverage is putting kidney failure patients at risk
As soon as she heard the Supreme Court decision, LaVarne Burton began to worry. As…
STAT+: UnitedHealth says medical costs aren’t soaring. The reality is murkier
Executives at UnitedHealth Group hinted Friday that hospitalizations are not rising and that people are…
1 in 6 people experience infertility worldwide, according to WHO report
One in six people across the globe face infertility at some point in their lifetime,…
Opinion: The much-maligned ‘quality-adjusted life year’ is a vital tool for health care policy
Health policy circles have erupted in debate over a wonky administrative tool: the quality-adjusted life…
Opinion: The Cancer Moonshot will never take off without economists and finance experts
In February, President Biden announced the reboot of the Cancer Moonshot and vowed to reduce…
Opinion: Drug developers navigating ‘biology’s century’ need a model. We made one
STAT’s Matthew Herper struck an industry nerve when he wrote that the drug development industry…
Opinion: Use warranties, not outcomes-based agreements, to make payers whole when a gene therapy fails
A decade ago, I had pegged gene and cell therapies as the next frontier. As…
Opinion: Reinventing health care in 2023
After a year defined by record inflation and double-digit health care premium increases, I hope…
Cancer patients endure an overlooked financial burden: hospital parking fees
For many patients, one of the most antagonizing parts of a hospital visit is paying…
Opinion: Millions of Americans have health insurance that isn’t ‘good enough’
The open enrollment season for health insurance is gearing up at a time when more…
Montana may be moving away from its innovative plan for setting hospital prices for public workers
Montana is signaling it might step away from an innovative way of setting the prices…
Medicare is going to cap patients’ spending on drugs. But there’s no such limit for hospital or doctor bills
By 2025, people on Medicare who take expensive medications will feel significant financial relief: They…
Opinion: CBO’s dismissal of health care price transparency is based on faulty premises
Can price transparency meaningfully reduce the outrageous cost of health care and coverage? I believe…
Opinion: Better use of health savings accounts: lessons from Singapore
Today, 9 in 10 Americans have health insurance, more than ever before, yet health care…
Opinion: Health care needs a Black Friday sale: the case for legalizing discounts on medical services
The best time to buy a car is at model year-end sales, and Black Friday…
Opinion: As hospitals raise their prices, U.S. workers and businesses suffer
Despite a recent taxpayer-subsidized boon, the hospital industry spent the last several months lobbying for…
Opinion: The No Surprises Act: A Band-Aid protecting business as usual
The No Surprises Act has been hailed as a major bipartisan reform aiming to eliminate…
Collateral damage of the Fed’s interest rate hikes: People who put medical bills on credit cards
Tiffany Yarina didn’t max out her credit card from a home renovation or luxury purchase….
STAT+: UnitedHealthcare to offer $0 insulin, Epi-Pens, but only for some members
Next year, UnitedHealthcare will offer employer health plans that have no copays or out-of-pocket costs…
STAT+: Nursing shortage at Mass. hospitals leads to multimillion-dollar costs
A widespread shortage of nurses at Massachusetts hospitals is only getting more extreme, with an…
Common injections don’t help knee osteoarthritis more than placebo, large data review finds
A commonly used treatment for people with knee osteoarthritis is barely more effective than the…