Wendell Potter's Blog, page 13

For-Profit Hospitals Mark Up Prices By More Than 1,000 Percent Because There’s Nothing To Stop Them

Health facility charges run amok. If you think costs would come down if hospitals were all owned and operated by big for-profit corporations like Hospital Corporation of America, you might want to take a look at a study published last week by the journal Health Affairs. Of the 50 U.S. hospitals that mark up prices […]

Free Market Ideology Doesn’t Work for Health Care

Costs imposed by ‘medical industrial complex’ defy reason. In my column last week I suggested that one of the reasons Americans tolerate paying so much more for health care than citizens of any other country — and getting less to show for it — is our gullibility. We’ve been far too willing to believe the […]

The Best Health Care System in the World? Nonsense!

Let’s stop buying the party line from insurers and drug companies. Americans spend more per capita on health care than people anywhere else in the world, yet outcomes in every other developed country are better on almost every measure, from infant mortality to life expectancy. A big reason for that is our collective gullibility. We […]

Obamacare Exchanges Help, But Confused Consumers Are Still Spending Too Much

Folks are happy with health coverage, but still confused by choices. Here’s the good news: 74 percent of people nationwide who enrolled in health insurance plans through the Obamacare exchanges rate their coverage as excellent or good.  That’s according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey released last Thursday. Here’s the not so good news: There’s […]

Insurers’ High-Deductible Plans Leave Many Without Needed Care

Study shows more Americans entering ranks of the underinsured. A dozen or so years ago, a small group of wealthy corporate insurance executives decided their customers were not paying nearly enough for the medical care they received. How else to explain the fact that managed care — which they had touted as a silver bullet […]

Insurers’ High-Deductible Plans Leave Many Without Needed cCre

Study shows more Americans entering ranks of the underinsured. A dozen or so years ago, a small group of wealthy corporate insurance executives decided their customers were not paying nearly enough for the medical care they received. How else to explain the fact that managed care — which they had touted as a silver bullet […]

Court Case Shows How Health Insurers Rip Off You And Your Employer

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan added hidden fees to hospital claims. If you think you’re paying too much for employer-sponsored health coverage, you might want to forward this to the HR department. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that your health insurer has been ripping off both you and your employer—to the tune of several […]

Health Insurers ‘May Go The Way Of Blockbuster’

Steven Brill believes insurance firms are simply getting in the way of cost control. Remember Blockbuster? In its heyday—which wasn’t so long ago—Blockbuster had 60,000 employees and 9,000 locations. For most Americans, for a minute anyway, it was the place to rent a movie.  Then along came Netflix. And Redbox, which operates most of the […]

Former Rep. Allyson Schwartz’s New Group, The Better Medicare Alliance, Is Not What It Appears

Fronting for a phony front group. The health insurance industry took advantage of Washington’s infamous revolving door last week when it named former Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, perceived by many to be a liberal Democrat, as the face of its latest K Street-operated front group. Schwartz, a former five-term member of Congress who made […]

Insurers Backed Obamacare, Then Undermined It. Now They’re Profiting From It

Playing all sides of the street on Obamacare. Anyone who still thinks the Affordable Care Act was a “government takeover of health care” should consider this headline from the news pages of last Thursday’s Investor’s Business Daily: UnitedHealth Profit Soars On Obamacare, Optum—April 16, 2015 That’s from a Wall Street publication whose editorial writers have […]