Short-Term Plans May Seem Enticing If You’re Looking For Affordable Insurance, But They Come With Fine Print
The plans hit the market on Tuesday, but consumers should be aware that while they are cheaper than other individual coverage options, they don't have to follow the regulations set into place by the health law.
NPR:
Cheap, Short-Term Health Policies May Leave Gaps In Coverage
If you're looking for cheaper health insurance, a whole host of new options will hit the market starting Tuesday. But buyer beware! If you get sick, the new plans – known as short-term, limited duration insurance — may not pay for the medical care you need. (Kodjak, 10/1)
In other national health care news —
NPR/ProPublica:
Health Insurance Industry Insider To Employers: Learn To Negotiate
Marilyn Bartlett took a deep breath, drew herself up to her full 5 feet and a smidge, and told the assembled handful of Montana officials that she had a radical strategy to bail out the state's foundering benefit plan for its 30,000 employees and their families. The officials were listening. Their health plan was going broke, with losses that could top $50 million in just a few years. It needed a savior, but none of the applicants to be its new administrator had wowed them.Now here was a self-described pushy 64-year-old grandmother interviewing for the job. (Allen, 10/2)
USA Today:
VA Hospitals' Cancellations Of Diagnostic Exam Orders Draw Scrutiny
Radiology technologist Jeff Dettbarn said he knew something was wrong at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, when a patient arrived in February 2017 for a CT scan, but the doctor’s order for it had been cancelled. “To have a patient show up for a scan and not have an order – you’re like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” he told USA TODAY in an interview. (Slack, 10/1)
The Associated Press:
Drugmaker Pfizer's CEO Read To Be Replaced By COO Bourla
The biggest U.S.-based drugmaker will change leaders in January when Pfizer Chief Operating Officer Albert Bourla replaces CEO Ian Read, who has led the company for nearly eight years. Pfizer Inc. said Monday that Read will become executive chairman of Pfizer's board of directors. The move comes after Pfizer's board in March gave Read an $8 million bonus contingent on boosting Pfizer's stock price and staying on for up to a year. (10/1)
The New York Times:
Breakthrough Leukemia Treatment Backfires In A Rare Case
A highly unusual death has exposed a weak spot in a groundbreaking cancer treatment: One rogue cell, genetically altered by the therapy, can spiral out of control in a patient and cause a fatal relapse. The treatment, a form of immunotherapy, genetically engineers a patient’s own white blood cells to fight cancer. Sometimes described as a “living drug,” it has brought lasting remissions to leukemia patients who were on the brink of death. Among them is Emily Whitehead, the first child to receive the treatment, in 2012 when she was 6. (Grady, 10/1)
ProPublica:
A Surgeon So Bad It Was Criminal
The pain from the pinched nerve in the back of Jeff Glidewell’s neck had become unbearable. Every time he’d turn his head a certain way, or drive over bumps in the road, he felt as if jolts of electricity were running through his body. Glidewell, now 54, had been living on disability because of an accident a decade earlier. As the pain grew worse, it became clear his only choice was neurosurgery. He searched Google to find a doctor near his home in suburban Dallas who would accept his Medicare Advantage insurance. (Beil, 10/2)