Dominic Keating, who played Lt. Reed on #StarTrek #Enterprise, pickets at #Paramount. "It's a mixed bag...we really enjoyed shooting the show and we made lasting lifelong #friendships," he said. Since then, he's seen gotten residual checks for as low as $15. He says the pay and the roles in #TV are not what they once were. "I have not made #HealthInsurance in over eight years, and I was on a hit show for this studio. That's not right." #SAGAFTRA #WGA #union #strike https://www.npr.org/2023/09/09/1198567210/star-trek-picket-line-actors-strike

The biggest priorities for U.S. health care are closing the Medicaid coverage gap in the ACA-holdout red states and adding dental/vision/hearing benefits to original Medicare.

Unfortunately, it will take progressive supermajorities in both houses of Congress to pass something like single-payer.

It is great for Dems to tout Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices, but let’s hear about what more progress they would make if they win.
#healthcare #healthinsurance #Medicaid #Medicare #ACA

Humana is suing the Biden administration over Medicare Advantage audit rule.

An explanation of what the lawsuit is about:

https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/01/humana-sues-medicare-advantage-audit/

#health #healthcare #medicine #insurance #healthinsurance #medicare #CMS #MedicareAdvantage

From @STAT:
"A new paper suggests a simple fix to the primary care physician shortage"

TLDR? Have #medicare ( #CMS ) pay them more. #healthinsurance too

This has been discussed in the media and a big subject of advocacy for decades but apparently you can still publish a paper about it now.

#directprimarycare allows physicians and patients to fix #primarycare without waiting for this.
#internalmedicine #pediatrics #familymedicine #medmastodon #RUC #AMA
@missanabeem
https://www-statnews-com.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/2023/09/01/primary-care-physician-shortage/

@ProPublica
Thanks for another great #healthinsurance article.

We're a #directprimarycare #familymedicine practice but still run into this frequently with insurers, i.e. automatic denials, followed by complicated time consuming online forms and phone calls, even "peer to peer" for tests that meet their criteria.

We as a country collectivelychoose to saddle patients with usurious premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and medical bankruptcies, and people to suffer and even die in order to preserve corporate profits. We don’t have to have to settle for the U.S. having a broken health-care non-system, but it means standing up to corporations and the politicians who take their campaign money.

We are told we “have the best health care in the world” and that is just completely untrue. #healthcare #healthinsurance

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/doctors-patients-shame-insurers-online-prior-authorization-denials/ Prior authorizations…how insurance companies pay their executives millions of dollars in bonuses while denying you care. I go through it twice a year…wait in anxiety for approval of 2 meds that are extending my life and quality of life. The article is more critical…denying a child treatment for a brain tumor…I am glad I don’t have their karma. #sickinsurance #healthinsurance

The interaction of #PrescriptionDrug pricing and #HealthInsurance is insane. I just discovered that my copay on a drug I take is 2.5 times as much ($112 vs. $44) *for the same quantity of medication* if the drug is packaged in 75 mg. capsules instead of 150 mg. WTF????

https://labornotes.org/2023/08/something-must-change-new-jersey-nurses-strike-safe-staffing

#NewJersey: 1,700 #nurses on #strike, #HealthInsurance ends at end of month, supporting families on #unemployment

#Capitalism #profit #union #ClassWar #Exploitation #PatientSafety #HealthCare #HealthCareWorkers #BurnOut

4 Medical Tests Worth Asking About ...that your insurance won't cover.
Put on your surprise face 😮 !

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/medical-tests/medical-tests-worth-asking-about-a1078875393/?EXTKEY=EE383DAAC&bt_user_id=YLX0vV026KsUyck%2BXNaT88mZFTZwrMArglPs9UfgiOrQmHtiFOvwjwt3k4319oVLfZwNCbFzjem5sgCWhZOH9c8GoVqjEHqlD0AH6VAHwfs%3D&bt_ts=1692743423907

#health #prevention #healthinsurance #labwork #labtest #medical #wellness

What is Health Insurance Excess? (And How It Works)

#excess #health #healthinsurance #insurance #Whatishealthinsuranceexcess
https://usnewsper.com/2023/08/what-is-health-insurance-excess-and-how-it-works/?feed_id=26817&_unique_id=64e457e3d60c4

While the author mentions cops in the U.S. and food benefits in France, I'm thinking about so-called #HealthInsurance in the U.S.

Valid insurance claims are already routinely denied, especially for serious illnesses, long recovery from accidents or injury, and costly chronic illness treatment, but at least there is a mechanism to appeal.

#ArtificialIntelligence will eliminate that 'loophole' in the money making scheme.

"AI and Power" by Rachel Thomas

https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2023-05-16-ai-centralizes-power/

#StéphanieAlain's only hope 4 recovery lies in clinical trial in #Calgary. Doctors running the trial in #Alberta say their funding will cover cost of treatment, but #RAMQ, #Quebec's #HealthInsurance board, won't cover any of the other expenses — standard procedures like scans & blood tests as well as possible adverse reactions associated w/ the experimental trial.

"It's the only treatment in the world that exists that could cure me," said Alain.

#Cancer

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-woman-out-of-options-cancer-treatment-1.6939756

PMJAY scheme: Nearly Rs 7 crore paid for treatment of ‘dead’ patients, shows CAG report

At least 3,446 patients who had previously been declared dead were treated under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana, the auditor said.

#PMJAY #HealthInsurance #healthcare #CAG #NHA #BJP #WelfareSchemes #UnionGovt #india

https://scroll.in/latest/1054419/pmjay-scheme-nearly-rs-7-crore-paid-for-treatment-of-dead-patients-shows-cag-report

1/3: A message I wrote to a friend re. healthcare spending of nations, which they had observed to be increasing:

I'm of the (uneducated) opinion that as countries/peoples become more wealthy in peace-time, once they percieve their needs as met, they end up spending that wealth on healthcare. A great tragedy from our perspective is that the best healthcare spending is preventative, but the wildest healthcare spending I observe through anecdote in other countries is curative; notoriously seen in futile end-of-life care in America.

The most obvious homologue - of a nation spending a hoofing amount of it's wealth in a given industry - seems to me the "military-industrial complex". It's a slightly clumsy term for our purpose, but here the military is a function of the government which in turn is a function of the country/peoples. So I think of it as a nation spending a hoofing amount of it's money on funding the industries that manufacture and deliver "warheads on foreheads", so to speak.

The best summary of this was provided by Eisenhower. I paste here words from https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/09/30/the-origins-of-that-eisenhower-every-gun-that-is-made-quote:

> More than a week after Stalin’s death, Eisenhower was talking with speechwriter Emmet Hughes about the address. “Look, I am tired—and I think everyone is tired—of just plain indictments of the Soviet regime,” Ike said. “I think it would be wrong—in fact, asinine—for me to get up before the world now to make another one of those indictments. Instead, just one thing matters. What have we got to offer the world?”

#healthcare #economics #NHS #obamacare #medicare #healthInsurance #finance #publicHealth #bigPharma #medicine #nursing #midwifery #physiotherapy #elderlyCare #socialCare #hospitals

@ProPublica
Another reason I'm glad we left the insurance racket eight years ago.
#healthinsurance
#MedMastodon
#costsofcare
#dpc
#directprimarycare

Health financing is a challenge any country has to deal with to provide good healthcare services. It’s especially important for developing countries such as Ghana, where the ability to pay is a hindrance to accessing all the healthcare services that people might need.

https://theconversation.com/ghanas-national-health-insurance-users-often-end-up-paying-as-much-as-those-who-dont-belong-so-why-join-210145

#healthcare
#healthinsurance
#ghana

Even if we have health insurance through our jobs, it still sucks. We end up paying 10-20% of our paycheck towards our share of the premium, and still have big deductibles and copays on top of that .

We could pay less for a single payer system through universal taxes and have better health care outcomes. #healthcare #healthinsurance #singlepayer #medicareforall

When headlines saying #semaglutide #SavesLives collide with employees hearing their #HealthInsurance is cutting them off from it and Novo Nordisk saying it will be next year before they make enough, there's definitely bedlam in #ObesityCare.
https://conscienhealth.org/2023/08/obesity-care-bedlam-but-no-worries/

Treatment for the Dead, Discharge Before Surgery and the Many Problems of Ayushman Bharat

The first ever CAG report on the PMJAY highlights how the scheme has been riddled with corruption and visible fraudulence.

#PMJAY #CAG #AyushmanBharat #NHA #healthcare #HealthInsurance #corruption #aadhaar #PMJAYID #eKYC #governance #WelfareSchemes #welfare #UnionGovt #BJP #covid19 #india

https://thewire.in/government/ayushman-bharat-cag-report-pmjay-corruption