This is part two of a two-part series exploring racism as a public health crisis in Appalachia and its compounding due to COVID-19. Read part one here. As COVID-19 bore down on his community, Thomas Beavers recognized that primary among...
In recent days, several tweets shared ominous news about the state of health insurance in the country. One tweeter said she bought an Affordable Care Act policy for a $1,200 monthly premium and a $7,500 deductible. By May, she said, she could no longer afford that premium. Another tweeter said...
As the support for a single-payer, “Medicare-for-All” health care system in U.S. grows, so do the contributions from the health insurance industry.
Both American political parties recently concluded their national conventions on the eve of an election that may be one of the most critical in history, not just for the United States, but for the world. In normal times – meaning the good ole days when only a...
Thirty-six state attorneys general and others allege that the manufacturer of Suboxone, a balm for America’s opioid crisis, gamed regulators and manipulated the market to overcharge consumers.
Now that it has settled into a monopoly over Central Appalachia’s health care, the Ballad Health system is stirring new controversy with a move intended to conserve money: consolidating intensive care facilities. Last year, they announced plans to merge their two Level 1 trauma facilities and their two neonatal...
At approximately 1 pm Eastern Time today, the 6th of January 2021, protesters in Washington D.C. who had gathered at the behest of President Donald Trump to bemoan the results of our recent Presidential election, breeched the security barriers outside of the US Capitol and made their way...
This story was reported through a partnership between MapLight, The Intercept and Tarbell. Investor-owned hospitals are leading the fight against the creation of a comprehensive, universal health care system, according to corporate filings reviewed by MapLight. Tenet Healthcare, the nation’s third-largest investor-owned operator of hospitals, has donated nearly $630,000 to the...
My former colleagues undoubtedly where cheering when they heard Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) come to the defense of private health insurers and trash the idea of improving and expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.
The new class of Democratic representatives entered Congress on an independent streak, disavowing corporate PACs and championing grassroots support. Many kept to their words, but major health corporations and associated donors still made their influence apparent. In fact, every Democratic Freshman representative took some form of money from health...
As health insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital companies fight to prevent more politicians from backing Medicare for All, the industry’s front group has turned to top Democratic consulting firms and pro-business nonprofits for help, according to its 2018 tax return. The array of consultants includes presidential candidate Joe Biden’s pollster. The...
An Appalachian physician explains how just five insurance powers control most of the market and what that means for patients.
High drug prices are Americans’ number one health care concern. The average price of a cancer drug rose from less than $10,000 a year before 2000 to more than $170,000 a year in 2017. Between 1995 and 2013, the launch price of cancer drugs increased by 10 to 12...
Tarbell is highlighting the government fines and penalties businesses pay when they engage in fraudulent or criminal behavior. Often, these fines are just a small part of the firms’ annual revenue and don’t actually serve as a deterrent. To these companies, it’s just the cost of doing business. International company...
This analysis was written by Tarbell board member Diane Archer and originally published in the health news and advisory platform Just Care on 3/6/2019. Tarbell is republishing this piece with permission.
Eleven years ago today, while I was still serving as head of corporate communications for Cigna, I flew from Philadelphia to Sacramento to attend the first U.S. screening of a new documentary, Michael Moore’s SiCKO. It never occurred to me as I walked into the historic Crest Theatre that...
In the 1960s, with no funding for long-term, chronic dialysis, hospital committees decided who would live and die. It was the federal government that put an end to this practice.
The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t just contribute to patient groups or the lawmakers themselves through campaign contributions to assert influence. It floods the U.S. Capitol with lobbyists. A Tarbell analysis of lobbying disclosures found that the leading drugmakers that make up the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, and the association itself, have spent...
Harris's plan won't work and history will prove it.
"The crooks already know these tricks; honest men must learn them in self-defense."