Tag Archives: Joseph Burns

Journalists expose significant problems with Medicare Advantage plans

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Majority report from US Senate Finance Committee finds seniors subject to marketing scams from health insurers.

Seniors signing up for Medicare Advantage (MA) during open enrollment (which ends Dec. 7) have more reasons to worry now that reporters at Kaiser Health News, MedPage Today and elsewhere have continued to uncover significant problems with these private managed care plans. 

During open enrollment, reporters have a responsibility to explain the problems seniors may face with MA plans and to warn them about deceptive marketing practices.

And health care journalists should ask officials at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) why it sets higher rates for health insurance brokers selling MA plans than the rates it sets for brokers to register seniors in Medicare Supplement (also called Medigap) plans that might be more appropriate for their needs.  Continue reading →

Joseph Burns (@jburns18), an independent journalist who resides in Brewster, Massachusetts, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform. He welcomes questions and suggestions and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

Conflicting state and federal abortion laws put pregnant patients, physicians and hospitals at risk

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Physicians treating pregnant women/people needing emergency medical care are wrestling with how to comply with what’s been called the bedrock law of emergency medicine when facing strict, new mandates on abortion.

“Confusion among emergency room doctors remains even after the Biden administration clarified this week that federal law allowing abortions in life-or-death situations supersedes any restrictions a state may have on the procedure,” Tony Pugh wrote for Bloomberg Law on Wednesday. His article explained how conflicting federal and state laws are complicating abortion care.

Early this week, Melanie Evans of The Wall Street Journal took a close look at how physicians and hospitals are addressing the mandates of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stripped away an almost 50-year-old right to an abortion.

Even before the SCOTUS decision on June 24, many states had enacted laws to either restrict or prohibit abortions or expand and protect access to abortion in anticipation of the ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, as noted in the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation’s tracker of these measures.

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Kerry Dooley Young is an independent journalist and AHCJ's core topic leader on patient safety. Joseph Burns, a Massachusetts-based independent journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform.