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Tag: Health Insurance and Managed Care
Life-Changing Drugs Almost Nobody Can Afford
Episode 11: ‘The Six Million Dollar Claim’ Producer/Director Suzanne Hillinger Patients suffering from rare diseases who had little hope for a treatment now have access to life-changing medicines, thanks to pharmaceutical companies’ investment in so-called orphan drugs, which treat diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people. But the increasing number of people who would benefit […]
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She Beat Cancer. Now, She’s in Another Fight for Her Life.
Erika Zak beat Stage IV metastatic colon cancer. She survived more than 70 rounds of chemotherapy and at least 19 hospitalizations to treat infections, severe bleeding and other medical complications. She’s stayed alive more than two years despite liver failure after a botched surgery. And, as CNN reported, she prevailed in a lengthy battle with […]
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How Much Damage Have Republicans Done in the States?
The 2018 election marked at least a temporary end to Republicans’ rise to power in many states. With full control of 26 states, Republicans had built a sustained opportunity to transform American subnational government. Liberals certainly feared the worst. Dark portraits of the Koch brothers’ network and the American Legislative Exchange Council (known as ALEC) […]
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A ‘GLOW’ Star and Pro Wrestler Finds Art Imitating Life
When Kia Stevens saw the comedian John Oliver’s damning dissection, on “Last Week Tonight,” of professional wrestling’s often callous treatment of its stars, she broke down and cried. “He’s speaking my truth,” the 41-year-old wrestler-turned-actor remembers thinking, as the she listened to Oliver criticize the billion-dollar industry in the March segment. Stevens had just finished […]
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The Ethical Mess of Our Health Care System
The recent Democratic primary debates in Detroit made at least one thing clear: The party exclusively responsible for passing the Affordable Care Act is now waging political warfare over whether to reform it or eliminate it. Senator Bernie Sanders was loud but not lonely in advocating “Medicare for all,” which would supplant the A.C.A. with […]
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A Mexican Hospital, an American Surgeon, and a $5,000 Check (Yes, a Check)
CANCUN, Mexico — Donna Ferguson awoke in the resort city of Cancun before sunrise on a sweltering Saturday in July. She wasn’t headed to the beach. Instead, she walked down a short hallway from her Sheraton hotel and into Galenia Hospital. A little later that morning, a surgeon, Dr. Thomas Parisi, who had flown in […]
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Tech Meets Health Care, Sometimes Shakily
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Katie Thomas, who covers health and is based in Chicago, discussed the tech she’s using. As a health care reporter, what are your most important tech tools for doing your work? I mostly work from home near Chicago, and […]
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Is ‘Bernie or Bust’ the Future of the Left?
ATLANTA — Three years ago, the Democratic Socialists of America had 5,000 members. Just another booth at the campus activities fair, another three-initialed group an uncle might mention over lunch. Today, dues-paying D.S.A. members exceed 56,000. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star of American politics, is one. So are a couple of dozen local elected […]
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A Question Rarely Asked: What Would Medicare for All Cover?
ImageMedical students at a rally outside a Chicago hotel where the American Medical Association was holding its annual meeting in June.CreditJoshua Lott for The New York Times In the first congressional hearing held on “Medicare for all” in April, Michael Burgess, a Republican congressman from Texas and a physician, called such a proposal “frightening” because […]
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What Beto Gets Right
This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. I’ve been pretty tough on Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign so far. A lot of other journalists have too. But campaigns are longer and more fluid than we journalists often acknowledge. And this week’s debates made me realize […]
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Democrats Are Having the Wrong Health Care Debate
As this week’s Democratic debates made clear, the party is divided on how to improve health care for Americans. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others are for a single-payer Medicare for All system. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and others want an incremental approach building on the Affordable Care Act. But candidates who are […]
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Joe Biden Is Learning That Liberals Eat Their Own
As a conservative watching the Democratic debates, one of the most astonishing aspects of the multicandidate assault on Joe Biden was that the case against him seems to be based in large measure on his role in two generations of Democratic victories. His “crimes” consist partly in playing crucial roles in the political successes of […]
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Joe Biden Did Fine, and That Might Have Been Enough
One month after a wobbly debate performance that reinforced the perceived weaknesses of the ostensible front-runner — Is he too old? Too nostalgically moderate? Too politically brittle to defend himself when challenged? — former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. settled behind his center-stage lectern on Wednesday night and supplied some answers: He is still […]
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Biden-Harris Rivalry Flares From the Start in Testy Exchange Over Health Care
DETROIT — Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Kamala Harris of California renewed their political rivalry almost instantly on the debate stage Wednesday night, as Mr. Biden accused Ms. Harris of peddling “double talk” on the central campaign issue of health care and Ms. Harris defended her newly unveiled plan as a […]
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Moderates Take On Sanders and Warren at the Democratic Debate
To the Editor: Re “Leading Liberals Fend Off Attacks on Big Promises” (front page, July 31): Amid the customary gnashing of teeth about which Democratic candidate might be most capable of knocking off the incumbent, let us all take just a moment to bask in a set of presidential debates that so far have featured […]
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Five Debate Takeaways
This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. A few takeaways from last night’s debate: I thought Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Steve Bullock did the most effective jobs of delivering their messages (which isn’t to say I agreed with everything they said). You can […]
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Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, Marooned Together on Fantasy Island
I’m no good at sartorial stuff, so I can’t describe how Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were actually dressed. But I can tell you what they were effectively wearing: targets. They came into the debate in Detroit on Tuesday night not just as the highest-polling candidates among the 10 on the stage, but also as […]
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Democratic Debate Turns Ferocious Over Health Care
WASHINGTON — It took only one question — the very first — in Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate to make it clear that the issue that united the party in last year’s congressional elections in many ways now divides it. When Jake Tapper of CNN asked Senator Bernie Sanders whether his Medicare for All […]
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What I’ll Be Looking for Tonight
This article is part of David Leonhardt’s newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it each weekday. The second round of Democratic primary debates begins tonight in Detroit, followed by another debate on the same stage Wednesday night. Most analysts expect confrontation, because these are the last debates before the standards for qualifying get […]
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