Inside Opinion » Health and Human Services

Sticker shock for America’s hospital patients

TNT Editorial Board — Tue, 14 May 2013 03:51:23 +0000

This editorial will appear in Tuesday’s print edition.

One of the deeper mysteries facing a patient who’s entered the bewildering labyrinth of the hospital world is why – after he’s discharged – those nice people send him a bill high enough to empty his 401k.

Then another bill comes: His insurance has paid an inexplicably low rate, and the hospital is inexplicably satisfied with it.

If he has insurance, that is. If he doesn’t, it may be time to look at that 401k.

The nation’s capricious and incomprehensively high hospital bills came under harsh light last week when the Department …

Birth control coverage will be a boon for millions

TNT Editorial Board — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:48:46 +0000

This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

Contraceptive use in the United States is an issue fraught with irony.

The women who can least afford to get pregnant – including the young, the poor and the uneducated – often have the least access to effective birth control. They may not have health insurance, but even if they do, it might be subject to a deductible or co-pay. So they’re more likely to use cheaper, less effective methods like condoms – or nothing at all.

Little wonder the United States has the highest rate of unintended pregnancies in the industrialized …