Years ago, I went to see a new doctor and offered to pay at time of service because I had not met my deductible. My doctor told me to wait for him to bill me because he had no idea what I would owe. Nowadays medical providers are taking no chances. The Wall Street Journal reports that doctors and hospitals increasingly ask for payment upfront.
Category: News and Events
Tuesday Links – 8 September 2026
- Food Stamp spending is on a path to exceed the Biden baseline.
- HHS, Wolves in White Coats: How Doctors and Hospitals Pushed and Profited from the Fraud of “Gender Medicine”
- Capital punishment for Bruce the dog. A California court ordered euthanization for an Anatolian Shephard accused of biting three people, including a child, and knocking over a man pushing a wheel chair. Supreme Court appeal was too late. (NYT)
- Street medicine: More than 150 programs across the country provide medical care to people sleeping outside — on sidewalks, in encampments, under overpasses. (NYT)
- Four million children in the United States are caring for an adult family member who is sick or disabled or old.
Who is to Blame for the High Cost of Health Care?
Stakeholder in the U.S. health care system constantly play the Blame Game. When policymakers want to reform the health care system stakeholders always seem to blame each other for what is wrong. Take drugmakers for example. Over the past dozen years Big Pharma has run a public relations campaign blaming Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) for high drug prices. There is something to this claim, but it’s not that straight forward.
Too Much Regulation is Holding Back the Discovery of Miracle Cures
Much of the slowdown in drug development has been caused by the accumulated weight of decades of regulatory requirements, piled one atop another over years. The paperwork burden alone can be enormous: Novo Nordisk’s former chief scientific officer once noted that the documentation required to request approval for two insulin products, if printed and stacked, would rise higher than the Empire State Building….
Source: “Doctors Who Discover Miracle Drugs Worry About Medicine’s Future,” New York Times.