Sorry to be away for so long…I was busy with a job working on healthcare reform. It was really fun for awhile to watch it up close and have all the wonky issues I’ve been writing about for 16 years talked about on a national stage. But now it’s just painful to watch.
So what does [...]
by Jan Greene
OK, I need to comment on what we’re starting to hear about the cost to our healthcare system of lifestyle choices — fast food, lack of exercise, etc. I’m seeing more commentaries alleging that Americans are just too lazy about their own health and need to “take responsibility for their own healthcare,” a [...]
I’ve been busy with other (paying) work and pondering how to make this blog useful. Haven’t figured that out yet…I think this niche may be a place to talk about the specifics of negotiating your bills down. I don’t see anyone talking about that much.
But they are talking a lot about how healthcare bills are [...]
By Jan Greene
Gee, I love having individual insurance. Just got a 17 percent rate increase in the mail for my high-deductible policy. Which means I’m likely paying $8500 this year to insure my young daughter and I, given that it’s likely I’ll end up spending the $2500 deductible, as I have the past two years. [...]
By Jan Greene
Just came out of a session at Health 2.0 about websites that help consumers with their medical bills and health insurance. Here are the highlights:
Change:healthcare is my current favorite among these types of sites. It addresses the same issue as this blog talks about: The yawning gap between what consumers are now expected [...]
By Jan Greene
I'm blogging live, because that's what bloggers do. Exciting, isn't it?I'm sitting in a roomful of 1,000 people who are hearing about how innovations on the web are going to help people better understand their health, find providers, stay healthy and figure out their medical bills. This is a daunting task but it's [...]
By Jan Greene
This may be a foolish thing to do, but I'm going to publicly discuss my lower back problems. This is dangerous because I buy my health insurance on the individual market, which means that anything that places me in a category of undesirable risk could make me uninsurable in the future. But what's [...]
By Jan Greene
Tom McGrath, a writer for Philadelphia magazine, took the time to try to figure out why the bill for his young daughter's appendectomy was $29,000. What he found out was how arbitrary medical billing can be, that hospital bills are highly fictional accounts of what a hospital may actually want, need or end [...]
By Jan Greene
I had the opportunity to meet a family that's been through hell and back, but managed to remain smart and informed consumers of healthcare even as their toddler son endured a long and difficult fight with liver cancer.
The Clarks, Richard and Diane, realized their son Dillon was sick during a visit to the [...]
By Jan Greene
The folks at Consumers Union, who publish Consumer Reports Health, have taken their show on the road this summer to bring attention to the many and varied flaws in the U.S. healthcare system. You can track their progress on their Cover America Tour site. Ultimately, the three young campaigners in an RV-shtick is [...]