Insurance

After 11 days in a St. Paul, Minnesota, skilled nursing facility recuperating from a fall, Paula Christopherson, 97, was told by her insurer that she should return home. But instead of being relieved, Christopherson and her daughter were worried because her medical team said she wasn’t well enough to leave. “This seems unethical,” said daughter […]

Frankie Cook remembers last year’s car crash only in flashes. She was driving a friend home from high school on a winding road outside Rome, Georgia. She saw standing water from a recent rain. She tried to slow down but lost control of her car on a big curve. “The car flipped about three times,” […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen. The transcript for this segment is being processed. We’re working to post it four to five days after the episode airs. Episode 12: Indigenous and Invisible in the Big City Over 70% of Indigenous people in the United States live in urban areas. But urban Indian […]

The day after his 8-month-old baby died, Kingsley Raspe opened the mail and found he had been sent to collections for her care. That notice involved a paltry sum, $26.50 — absurd really, given he’d previously been told he owed $2.5 million for treatment of his newborn’s congenital heart defect and other disorders. Raspe and […]

Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on Acast. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. President Joe Biden’s declaration in a national interview that the covid-19 pandemic is “over” has complicated his own administration’s efforts to get Congress to provide more funding […]

Health insurance giant Centene Corp. has agreed to pay $165.6 million to Texas to resolve claims that it overcharged the state’s Medicaid program for pharmacy services. It’s the biggest known payout by the nation’s largest Medicaid insurer over its drug pricing practices. The deal was signed July 11 but hadn’t been publicly announced until Monday […]

Tom and Mary Jo York are a health-conscious couple, going in for annual physicals and periodic colorectal cancer screening tests. Mary Jo, whose mother and aunts had breast cancer, also gets regular mammography tests. The Yorks, who live in New Berlin, Wisconsin, are enrolled in Chorus Community Health Plans, which, like most of the nation’s […]

Last year, Tim Chevalier received the first of many coverage denials from his insurance company for the hair removal procedure he needed as part of a phalloplasty, the creation of a penis. Electrolysis is a common procedure among transgender people like Chevalier, a software developer in Oakland, California. In some cases, it’s used to remove […]

A federal judge’s ruling in Texas has thrown into question whether millions of insured Americans will continue to receive some preventive medical services, such as cancer screenings and drugs that protect people from HIV infection, without making a copayment. It’s the latest legal battle over the Affordable Care Act, and Wednesday’s ruling is almost certain […]

Economic insecurity is upending the lives of millions of older adults as soaring housing costs and inflation diminish the value of fixed incomes. Across the country, seniors who until recently successfully managed limited budgets are growing more anxious and distressed. Some lost work during the covid-19 pandemic. Others are encountering unaffordable rent increases and the […]