Health Care Reform Articles-May 21, 2012

Your Stories Of Being Sick Inside The U.S. Health Care System

To get a feeling for what being sick in America is really like, and to help us understand the findings of our poll with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, NPR did a call-out on Facebook. We asked people to share their experiences of the health care system, and within 24 hours, we were flooded with close to 1,000 responses.

The stories were often lengthy and detailed. From Oregon to Florida and Maine to Mississippi, Facebook respondents told wrenching tales of bankruptcies, missed diagnoses, medical errors, miscommunication, and treatment that was delayed or foregone because of its cost.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3936036848977011940

Waiting for Health Care

Waiting For Health Care

The filmmaker Peter Nicks goes behind the doors of an American public hospital struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/05/20/opinion/100000001555132/waiting-for-health-care.html?hp

Diabetes on the Rise Among Teenagers

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Karsten Moran for The New York Times Sara Chernov, 21, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when she was 16.

Nearly one in four American adolescents may be on the verge of developing Type 2 diabetes or could already be diabetic, representing a sharp increase in the disease’s prevalence among children ages 12 to 19 since a decade ago, when it was estimated that fewer than one in 10 were at risk for or had diabetes, according to a new study.

This worsening of the problem is worrying in light of recently published findings that the disease progresses more rapidly in children than in adults and is harder to treat, experts said.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/diabetes-on-the-rise-among-teenagers/?pagemode=print

Higher Prices Charged By Hospitals, Other Providers, Drove Health Spending During Downturn

TOPICS: HEALTH COSTS, HOSPITALS

By JULIE APPLEBY

KHN Staff Writer

MAY 21, 2012

Higher prices charged by hospitals, outpatient centers and other providers drove up health care spending at double the rate of inflation during the economic downturn– even as patients consumed less medical care overall, according to a new study.

Prices rose at least five times faster than overall inflation for emergency room visits, outpatient surgery and facility-based mental health and substance abuse care from 2009 to 2010, says the report by the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonpartisan research group funded by insurers.  Prices declined in only one category: nursing home care, which saw a 3.2 percent drop in the cost per admission.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/May/21/higher-health-care-prices-hospitals.aspx

Clipboard: Senate health cost bill moves forward, with critics

http://www.boston.com/whitecoatnotes/2012/05/18/clipboard-senate-health-cost-bill-moves-forward-with-critics/OWN8OzS9jh4OeComzwq4XL/story.html