Health Care Costs

The Illinois Department of Family and Human Services says it’s not ready to implement cost-saving measure implemented by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration.

Advocates argued Illinois' rule changes were too costly for low-income patients. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office said co-pays should not have been charged yet anyway, though they are expected to resume eventually.

Democrats say the expansion will lower health care costs by reducing care administered at emergency rooms, while Republicans argue it will incentivize illegal immigration and overburden the state’s health system.

A traveling medical clinic is expanding its reach to better meet the need in rural areas of eastern Missouri. The Rural Parish Clinic’s team of volunteer doctors and nurses treat low-income, uninsured adults out of a 40-foot converted van.

It didn’t take a pandemic to prove that the U.S. health care system is broken, but this year’s COVID-19 outbreak certainly provided more evidence of what we all knew. To fix it, we need to “change the entire game,” says Rita Numerof, president and co-founder of the health care consulting firm Numerof & Associates.

Missouri has lost seven rural hospitals since 2014. It’s a trend seen in areas across the country, and it’s a topic explored extensively in the new podcast “Where It Hurts.”

Much of the conversation about contemporary American health care revolves around money more than actual medicine. But given the crushing costs associated…

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, May 9, 2013 - The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released hospital data on average…