health care costs

When Shannon VanRaes was bitten by a feral dog in India, she encountered an epic journey to receive post-exposure treatment. A longtime reporter on zoonosis, she was able to second-guess a doctor who told her she wasn’t an infection risk. She could afford treatment, and…

Minnesota mom Lija Greenseid recently led a caravan to the Canadian border on a quest for insulin her daughter’s Type 1 diabetes.   Outraged by the near-doubling in cost of insulin in the US in recent years, she organized a small group of Americans to Ontario, where they…

The cost of crucial vaccines for disease like Ebola and Zika may become unmanageable due to eroded pricing protections, warned Médecins Sans Frontières in an open letter to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness. CEPI took an “alarming step backwards” by reversing its…

 “Alcohol advertising is not a harmless brand-promoting activity,” write the University of Cape Town's Leslie London and colleagues who researched the issue in an urban and rural area of South Africa. Easy access to alcohol and exposure to alcohol ads take a heavy toll on…

The location of Rwanda’s University of Global Health Equity was chosen strategically. Rather than mimic other med schools, it mirrors the lives of most patients and teaches doctors accordingly. Based in Butaro—a poor, rural part of Rwanda—the limitations of real-world…

The White House is looking to slash what Medicare pays for drugs to roughly match the cost in European countries. US residents pay more for meds than any other high-income country; some drugs cost 4 times more than in other countries, tweeted health secretary Alex Azar.

Public health offers better bang for our buck than most other types of health care spending in the US—if we had more of it, what should it be spent on? Austin Frakt and Aaron E. Carroll checked in with officials, academics and funding organizations. The gist:

Contradicting assumptions held by over 50% of Americans that immigrants drive up healthcare costs, a new study finds that not only do immigrants receive far less care, they’re likely to pay more into the system than they take out when compared with those US-born.

Improved surgical care is a gateway to sustainable development, fostering healthy populations, and thus productivity and economic growth, writes writes Emmanuel Malabo Makasa, a surgeon and diplomat working in Zambia. 70% of the global population lacks access to safe,…

The skyrocketing price of life-saving prescription drugs mean scores of Americans must fork out thousands of dollars a month just to survive, or choose between crucial medications.Among them is 57-year-old Saundra Johnson, whose income is too high to qualify for extra…