Op-Ed

Still unvaccinated? There's an increasingly pressing reason – beyond the threat to the health of you and your loved ones – to get the shot against COVID-19: many health insurance companies are no longer waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID treatment. A new study has found 5% of privately insured COVID-19...

Health insurance industry executives knew from the beginning that their strategy of moving as many Americans as possible into high-deductible health plans would lead to financial ruin and even early death for millions. But they didn’t care. They cared more about implementing a strategy that gave them greater assurance...

Tarbell was founded on the premise that healthcare was too expensive and inaccessible for millions of Americans. This underserved population needed an advocate to advance the notion of affordable and quality healthcare for all citizens. The nature of this mission obviously lends itself to those individuals, organizations and political...

By Kimberly J. Soenen    Recent and ongoing world events demand attention, thought and a critical reTHINK about health, healthcare and Public Health. There is a common denominator between what's unfolding in Afghanistan, the ongoing mass shootings in Chicago, the lack of infrastructure in Haiti, the...

The $140 billion the New York Times says Americans owe in medical debt is just the tip of the iceberg. The number doesn’t even include the billions we are putting on our credit cards to pay for health care because of insurance deductibles we can’t...

When you want to know if the US government, or the political party in charge, is pulling a fast one on the public, look at the name they give a new program or law. The USA PATRIOT Act is a classic example. An acronym for Uniting and...

Congrats, America! Earlier this month you passed an annual milestone: Two days after Tax Day, you made it to... Deductible Relief Day!  What's that? It’s the day where the average person with employer-based health insurance has spent enough on health expenses to finally meet their deductible.

By Brent Korson   Leading off Tarbell’s “A Year Later” series, the 3-week timeline following the murder of George Floyd, “21 Days in May and June That Are Still Changing America: A Brief Timeline And Historic Firsts”, was written to function as a kind of time capsule. Even through...

In last week’s speech by President Biden, something stood out to me that was overlooked by many pundits: the president spoke of the NEED to fix sky-high health insurance deductibles immediately. It's not the sexiest topic, but here's why it matters. Many think that...

As of January 1 of this year, under the UN Charter, nuclear weapons have been declared illegal — both their possession and their use, putting them in the same status as chemical and biological weapons, but because none of the 86 signatory nations have nukes, and because...

On many occasions, I have been accused to trying to turn every important leadership and management decision that is thrust in my direction into a “math problem”. I do believe that data, and the numbers behind the data, on the assumption that it is accurate and relative...

On the 24th of September 2020, President Donald Trump passed an Executive Order (EO) entitled, “An America-First Health Care Plan.” This EO is nearly 4,200 words long, however less than 500 words discuss the objectives of lower drug costs and access to care, without a clear path...

Here’s an interesting irony: Everyone around Trump who gets COVID-19 may be in big trouble if they get their wish and gut the Affordable Care Act. Why? In the future, COVID will likely be classified by private insurers as a pre-existing condition.  I'd know...

We have written extensively over the past few weeks regarding the unprecedented importance of the upcoming election.  At Tarbell, our commitment to advocating for the right to affordable and adequate health care and the democratic process; and against any threat to these two pillars of our mission,...

When Wendell Potter founded Tarbell, there was one overriding theme guiding the organization – better, cheaper and more accessible healthcare for all Americans.  That mandate has not changed, nor will it change.  Another mandate for our journalism was a commitment to be apolitical.  Tarbell...

Watch out! Uncle Donald is coming for your and all your relatives’ Social Security and Medicare! The all-out attack on Social Security and Medicare, the two remaining standing edifices of the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, has begun...

OP-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Tarbell does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Presumptive Democratic Nominee for President Joe Biden has advocated for what...

When most Americans think of the rights and principles that our country was founded on, we refer to the ideals of freedom, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness written in the Declaration of Independence. However, have our political institutions evolved from this 18th century premise? When we...

When Andrew Yang began his presidential campaign in 2017, he was relatively unknown in the mainstream political scene. A young Democrat from Schenectady, New York, he made waves when he proposed some seriously progressive ideas during his short but impactful run in the presidential primaries of 2020—one...

When I first met Wendell Potter, Tarbell’s founder and Chairman, I was immediately struck by his intelligence, humility, and his insatiable determination to call out corruption stemming from the ability of corporate money and the ultra-wealthy to drive their special interests into the fabric of our society. ...