$102,000 was the bill for her teen’s stay in a state mental hospital : Shots

Bridget Narsh at her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Narsh’s son has autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ADHD. In 2020, he spent more than 100 days at Central Regional Hospital, a state-run mental health facility. The state billed the family nearly $102,000 for the hospitalizations.

Eamon Queeney/KFF Health News


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Bridget Narsh at her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Narsh’s son has autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ADHD. In 2020, he spent more than 100 days at Central Regional Hospital, a state-run mental health facility. The state billed the family nearly $102,000 for the hospitalizations.

Eamon Queeney/KFF Health News

Bridget Narsh’s son, Mason, needed urgent help in January 2020, so she was offered the chance to send him to Central Regional Hospital, a state-run mental health facility in Butner, North Carolina.

The teen, who deals with autism and post-traumatic stress and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders, had started destroying furniture and running away from home. His mother worried for the safety of Mason and the rest of the family.

But children in crisis in North Carolina can wait weeks or months for a psychiatric bed because the state lacks the services to meet demand. And when spots do become available, they are expensive.

The standard rate at Central Regional was $1,338 a day, which Narsh could not afford. So, when a patient relations representative offered a discounted rate of less than $60 a day, her husband, Nathan, signed an agreement.

Mason, now 17, was hospitalized for more than 100 days in Central Regional over two separate stays that year, documents show.

But when requests for payment arrived the following year, Narsh said she was shocked. The letters — which were marked “final notice” and requested immediate payment — were signed by a paralegal in the office of Josh Stein, North Carolina’s attorney general. The total bill, $101,546.49, was significantly more than the roughly $6,700 the Narshes expected to pay under their agreement with the hospital.

“I had to tell myself to keep my cool,” says Bridget Narsh, 44, who lives with her husband and three children in Chapel Hill. “There is no way I could pay for this.”

Medical bills have upended the lives of millions of Americans, with hospitals putting liens on homes and pushing many people into bankruptcy. In recent years, lawmakers have railed against privately operated hospitals, and states have passed laws intended to make medical billing more transparent and limit aggressive debt collection tactics.

Some state attorneys general — as their states’ top law enforcement officials — have pursued efforts to shield residents from harmful billing and debt collection practices. But in the name of protecting taxpayer resources, their offices are also often responsible for collecting unpaid debts for state-run facilities, which can put them in a contradictive position.

Stein, a Democrat running for governor in 2024, has made hospital consolidation and health care price transparency a key issue during his time in office.

“I have real concerns about this

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NC Senate Republicans float Medicaid expansion bill

By Rose Hoban and Rachel Crumpler

It finally happened.

In a move that many health care advocates have been pushing for years, the state Senate introduced a bill on Wednesday that would expand the state’s Medicaid program to some half million-plus low-income North Carolinians.

Until this point, Medicaid has been reserved mostly for children from low-income families along with a small number of parents in those families, poor seniors and people with disabilities. Since 2012, the possibility to sweep in many low-income workers has been on the table as a result of the Affordable Care Act, but Republican leaders in the state senate have been staunch opponents. 

Now, after years of saying no, powerful Republicans in the state Senate are saying yes.

“Why now? Why this? First, we need coverage in North Carolina for the working poor,” said state Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Eden), who admitted during a press conference Wednesday that he has likely been the most outspoken person in the state about his opposition to Medicaid expansion.

“Second, there is no fiscal risk to the state budget moving forward with this proposal,” Berger added, noting that the bill includes pay-fors that would have hospitals largely on the hook to pay the 10 percent of the costs for the expansion population not covered by an enhanced federal payment. There’s also a federal incentive that would total some $1.5 billion in extra funds that would flow to North Carolina over a two-year period.

Finally, he argued that since the state has moved Medicaid from being a state-run fee-for-service program to one managed by commercial insurance companies, the program has been “reformed and transformed.” 

“Medicaid expansion has now evolved to a point that it is good state fiscal policy,” Berger continued. “But again, I cannot emphasize this enough: Expanding Medicaid needs to happen with additional reforms.”

Those reforms could make the bill to be titled Expanding Access to Healthcare in North Carolina a hard pill for many to swallow. One aspect of the bill would set up a work requirement for the new beneficiaries, something that’s been repeatedly struck down in other states by federal judges. 

What really might jeopardize passage of the bill is that it contains provisions that already are raising hackles in some powerful health care lobbies, including those that advocate for the state’s physicians and hospitals. 

Resistance from doctors

One reform proposed in the 33-page bill would make it possible for advanced practice nurses such as nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) to practice without having a contract with a physician for their supervision.

Physician and nursing groups have been divided over the so-called SAVE Act for years, with medical providers — led by the North Carolina Medical Society — usually being able to stop the nurses from having more leeway in their practices. At a Senate Health Care Committee hearing held after the press conference, several Democratic lawmakers also expressed reservations over this part of the bill. 

Chip Baggett, head of the

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GOP blocks Senate COVID bill, demands votes on immigration | Health and fitness and Physical fitness

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans blocked a Democratic try to start out Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise, urgent to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration limits that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats.

A working day right after Democratic and GOP bargainers arrived at arrangement on offering the money for remedies, vaccines and screening, a Democratic transfer to thrust the measure previous a procedural hurdle failed 52-47 Tuesday. All 50 Republicans opposed the shift, leaving Democrats 13 votes limited of the 60 they required to prevail.

Hrs previously, Republicans said they’d withhold crucial help for the evaluate unless of course Democrats agreed to votes on an modification protecting against President Joe Biden from lifting Trump-era curbs on migrants getting into the U.S. With Biden polling improperly on his handling of immigration and Democrats divided on the challenge, Republicans see a target on migrants as a fertile line of attack.

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“I feel there will have to be” an modification preserving the immigration limits “in purchase to move the bill” bolstering federal pandemic initiatives, Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., informed reporters.

At minimum 10 GOP votes will be essential in the 50-50 Senate for the evaluate to achieve the 60 votes it ought to have for approval. Republicans could withhold that support until Democrats allow a vote on an immigration modification.

Biden and Senate The vast majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., want Congress to approve the pandemic monthly bill prior to lawmakers leave in days for a two-7 days recess.

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Postal provider reform bill would shift retirees health treatment expenses to Medicare : Shots

A US Postal assistance staff unloads mail at a facility on February 10, 2022 in Houston, Texas. On February 8, the Property of Reps passed the Postal Assistance Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076). The laws will tackle operational and monetary concerns that the agency has been grappling with for years.

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A US Postal company staff unloads mail at a facility on February 10, 2022 in Houston, Texas. On February 8, the Property of Associates handed the Postal Company Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076). The laws will tackle operational and financial challenges that the agency has been grappling with for years.

Brandon Bell/Getty Pictures

A very long-awaited invoice to correct the nation’s deteriorating mail provider is on the verge of passage in the Senate, but it could occur at the cost of an even even larger and a lot more difficult trouble: Medicare solvency.

The Postal Support Reform Act of 2022 would aid shore up article workplace finances by ending the abnormal and onerous lawful prerequisite to fund 75 a long time of retirement health and fitness benefits in advance. In return, it would require long term Postal Provider retirees to enroll in Medicare.

In accordance to the Congressional Spending plan Office, the shift could save the postal retirement and well being programs about $5.6 billion as a result of 2031 whilst adding $5.5 billion in costs to Medicare through that span, and possibly significantly a lot more in later on many years.

Taking into consideration the large dimensions of Medicare — it put in $926 billion in 2020 — the expenditures never sum to considerably. That small money effect, and the ongoing immediate crises with mail supply, in all probability account for the robust bipartisan assistance the postal monthly bill has been given in Congress, with 120 Republicans joining Democrats to go the invoice in the Household on Feb. 8.

But late in the process, some lawmakers are elevating alarms around the shift, arguing that possibly Congress must glimpse additional carefully at the fiscal effect to Medicare’s belief fund, which is envisioned to run dry in 2026.

“This invoice simply shifts possibility to Medicare recipients by incorporating billions of new expenses to Medicare,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., claimed Feb. 14 in blocking requests on the Senate flooring to expedite passage of the invoice. Scott’s objection delayed consideration of the invoice till early March, following the Senate returns from its Presidents Working day split.

Presently, Postal Support staff members are coated by strategies presented in the Federal Employees Wellbeing Added benefits plan. When they retire they have a number of decisions for wellbeing treatment, including staying in their initial plan or switching to Medicare as their major protection and owning an FEHB strategy serve as supplementary protection. About 20% of postal retirees do not indication up for Medicare, preferring their latest federal plan. Below this legislation, they would have to change to Medicare, but

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Maryland lawmakers voice aid for compensated household go away bill | Wellbeing and Physical fitness

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Democrats expressed their solve Thursday to approve a compensated family members and medical go away coverage plan in the condition this yr, with Senate President Invoice Ferguson declaring emphatically: “It’s heading to pass this 12 months.”

The evaluate, which also has help in the Household of Delegates, would provide 12 weeks of compensated depart for Maryland workers with specified own or loved ones instances, these kinds of has caring for a sick relative or possessing a little one.

When the proposal has stalled in previous several years, supporters say the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how badly the software is essential. The weekly reward would be based on an individual’s normal weekly wage, topic to a cap.

Sen. Antonio Hayes, a Baltimore Democrat who is sponsoring the legislation, reported Maryland and numerous other states currently wrestle with convoluted workarounds and baffling administrative leave insurance policies that need to have updating.

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“While some states and businesses and nearly every other formulated country on the globe have taken a purposeful and strategic technique to relatives depart, Maryland has remained powering – trapped in a framework from the past that ignores the realities that the modern work area and workforce have,” Hayes explained with most of his fellow Senate Democrats by his facet.

Lisa Barkan spoke of how fortuitous she was to be in a position to choose time off from do the job when who young son Alex was unwell with a uncommon liver sickness. The time enabled her to care for him and be with him when he died at the age of two and a 50 %.

“No one, no a person, ought to ever have to select among obtaining a position and having care of themselves or their loved types,” Barkan mentioned. “I cannot consider losing any of that time and no 1 should really.”

The program would deal with an staff who normally takes leave to treatment for household associates, or has a severe well being ailment of his or her personal. It also would implement to a qualifying require that benefits from a family member’s military deployment. The legislation would make a fund, and contributions would be shared in between companies and staff, dependent on worker wages.

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce is opposing the legislation. Mary Kane, the chamber’s president and CEO, reported when the firm is not versus the thought, the Maryland legislation goes as well significantly and did not involve input from employers, a lot of of whom are having difficulties to recover from the pandemic and are unable to manage the price tag now.

“This laws is not the way to go,” Kane explained in an interview. “This is much too onerous on our businesses right here in the point out.”

Sen. Joanne Benson, a Prince George’s County Democrat who is sponsoring the monthly bill with Hayes, said paid household leave need to not be viewed as a

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Lawmakers seek out bipartisan offer on kid psychological well being monthly bill | Wellness and Fitness

A team of Democratic and Republican state lawmakers on Friday unveiled the beginnings of what they pledged will be big overhaul of mental wellbeing products and services for little ones in Connecticut, an situation some regularly referred to as a “crisis” that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The roughly 100-site monthly bill staying offered by the Household of Reps legislators, all users of a bipartisan doing work team that began assembly in November, is a single of numerous proposals to boost mental health treatment up for thing to consider this session, which includes those from Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont and the point out Senate caucuses.

Dwelling Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, predicted the many expenses will inevitably be morphed into a single bipartisan piece of legislation that addresses almost everything from increasing the depleted ranks of mental health staff through scholar mortgage forgiveness and other applications to generating peer guidance packages in educational institutions.

“It’s not a rivalry. It’s not a competitiveness of expenditures or ideas, but relatively it displays that everybody in this developing believes this is an possibility for us to make key alterations in the way we address psychological wellbeing for our youngsters,” Ritter reported of the dueling proposals.

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“This must be and have to be a bipartisan piece of laws. Historic variations do not materialize frequently when it is a single sided,” he stated. “We will have our disagreements. We will have votes that go 1 way or the other. But this is an chance to provide individuals jointly and display the condition and exhibit the state this is what happens when folks function jointly.”

The Normal Assembly’s Public Wellbeing Committee is scheduled to maintain a public listening to Feb. 25 to hear testimony on the payments, which tackle a wide variety of challenges together with funding for extra cellular disaster models, generating telehealth companies permanent, increasing the kinds of psychological well being treatment solutions for kids and their households, and funding for more in-faculty social workers and psychiatrists. In some scenarios, the proposals call for at first employing federal COVID relief income to kick-begin the initiatives.

There are also proposals that deal with the improved demand for mental wellness providers for grownups as nicely.

“This is a get started,” reported Rep. William Petit, R-Plainville, a doctor, of the bill unveiled Friday. “I assume the general public hearing method is heading to be significant to get enter from companies, people today on the front traces, of what needs to be tweaked, what wants to be additional to.”

He recalled Friday how acquiring a affected person the mental well being treatment they will need is “one of the toughest jobs” he has confronted as a medical doctor.

Like numerous states, Connecticut faces a shortage of all types of behavioral overall health personnel. According to scientists at the Kaiser Loved ones Basis, the per cent of the will need for mental overall health industry experts in Connecticut that was satisfied as of

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