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Health Care for All blog
Insulin's Inventors Sold the Patent for a Dollar, and Then Prices Soared Insulin's inventors sold the patent for a token dollar in 1923. A century later Americans rationed it. How a gift became a scandal, and what the 2022 cap fixed. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, From Rebates to Spread Pricing In July 2024 the FTC's staff reported on the three largest pharmacy benefit managers. What these middlemen do, how rebates and spread pricing work, and why patients pay for it at the counter. When Bernie Sanders and John McCain Wrote a Veterans Bill Together After the 2014 Phoenix VA wait-list scandal, a democratic socialist from Vermont and a Republican war hero from Arizona wrote a reform law together. How they did it, and what came after. 219 to 212: The Sunday Night Vote That Passed the Affordable Care Act How a lost Senate seat, an abortion-language deal and a budget procedure got the Affordable Care Act through the House by seven votes on a Sunday night in March 2010. ACT UP Storms the FDA and Changes How Drugs Get Approved How a 1988 protest outside the FDA in Rockville, Maryland pushed regulators toward faster access to experimental AIDS drugs, and why those rules still shape medicine today. EMTALA, Emergency Rooms and Abortion When a Pregnancy Turns Dangerous What the 1986 federal emergency-care law requires of hospitals, why the Supreme Court ducked the abortion question in 2024, and what changed when guidance was pulled in 2025. Georgia Pathways and the Cost of Checking Who Works Georgia launched the only active Medicaid work requirement in July 2023. Its thin enrollment and heavy paperwork costs are a warning now that federal law pushes every expansion state the same way. Harry and Louise and the Collapse of the 1994 Clinton Health Plan Two actors at a kitchen table helped sink the Clinton health plan. Here is how the ads worked, why the bill died without a floor vote, and what reformers learned. How a 2012 Supreme Court Ruling Made Medicaid Expansion a State Choice NFIB v. Sebelius saved the ACA's insurance mandate as a tax but let states refuse Medicaid expansion. Here is how that ruling created the coverage gap and how voters answered it. How Medication Abortion Works and Why Its Safety Record Matters in Court General information on the two-drug medication abortion regimen approved in 2000, what decades of research show about its safety, and why that evidence keeps deciding legal fights. How to Dispute a Medical Bill and Keep It Off Your Credit Report A step-by-step guide to itemized bills, insurance appeals, hospital charity care, payment plans and credit report disputes, built on the 2022 change in how the credit bureaus treat medical debt. IVF After the Alabama Supreme Court's Frozen Embryo Ruling How a 2024 Alabama ruling that frozen embryos count as children under a wrongful-death law paused IVF clinics, what the quick legislative fix left open, and why personhood matters. Julia Lathrop and the 1912 Children's Bureau That Studied Why Babies Died In 1912 Julia Lathrop became the first woman to run a federal bureau and set out to learn why so many American babies died. Her door-to-door studies led to the Sheppard-Towner Act. Ryan White and the 1990 AIDS Care Law Named After an Indiana Teenager A boy with hemophilia was barred from his Indiana school in 1985 because he had AIDS. Months after he died in 1990, Congress passed the HIV care program that still bears his name. The 1974 Deal Between Nixon and Ted Kennedy That Never Got Signed In 1974 a Republican president offered near-universal coverage through employers. Kennedy and organized labor held out for more, and Watergate ended the chance. The Black Panther Party's Free Clinics and Its Sickle Cell Campaign In 1971 the Black Panther Party launched a national sickle cell testing campaign from free clinics in cities across the country. What it did and why it matters. The Early-Morning Thumbs-Down That Saved the Affordable Care Act Why seven years of promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act ended with John McCain's no vote in July 2017, and what the failure revealed about who a law belongs to. The First Ten Drugs and How Medicare Price Negotiation Works In August 2023 Medicare named the first ten drugs whose prices it would negotiate, from Eliquis to Jardiance. Here is how drugs get picked, how the bargaining runs, and what changed in 2026. Truman's 1945 Health Plan and the AMA Campaign That Buried It How Truman's 1945 call for national health insurance died: a two-word label, a California consulting firm, a famous painting and a lobbying drive paid for by doctors. What Happened When Arkansas Tied Medicaid to Work Hours in 2018 Arkansas was the first state to enforce a Medicaid work requirement. Over 18,000 people lost coverage before a judge stopped it, and the research found little change in employment. What the 2025 Budget Law's Medicaid Work Requirements Actually Require Who must report 80 hours a month to keep Medicaid under the 2025 budget law, who is exempt, when it starts, and why paperwork rather than work drives most coverage losses. What the July 2025 Tax and Spending Law Did to Medicaid and SNAP A plain guide to the work requirements, six-month renewals, state cost shifts and benefit changes for Medicaid and SNAP in the July 4, 2025 law, and when each one is set to arrive. Why ACA Premiums Jumped When the Enhanced Tax Credits Expired The 2021 rescue law erased the ACA's 400 percent subsidy cliff and cut what families paid. When those enhanced credits lapsed after 2025, the cliff came back. Here is how the math works. Why Lyndon Johnson Flew to Independence, Missouri, to Sign Medicare Johnson signed Medicare at the Truman Library in 1965 to settle a debt: the old man watching had proposed national health insurance twenty years earlier and lost.