More than a quarter of adults in Texas have a pre-existing condition that could make them unable to get health coverage without ACA requirements.
THIS WEEK: The stories aren’t hard to find: the young uninsured woman who was hit with a $137,000 bill for brain cancer treatment. The woman whose insurance company delayed paying for surgery while her breast cancer spread. The ones who filed for bankruptcy. The ones who died. This is the pre-Affordable Care Act insurance market that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 19 other Republican attorneys general, is fighting for in court.
Over the last few weeks, Barnebey and city officials have been meeting regularly in the hopes of ironing out their differences. As this story went to press, both sides were hopeful they’d finally reached an agreement. But after months of accusations and acrimony on both sides, many questions remain unanswered.
Is Barnebey a green criminal prosecutor bungling the law, as some detractors have suggested? Or a woman taking on good ol’ boys who haven’t enforced laws meant to hold authorities accountable?
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From the archives
Anatomy of a Tragedy
Dr. Christopher Duntsch’s patients ended up maimed and dead, but the real tragedy is that the Texas Medical Board couldn’t stop him.
From the story: “Physicians who complained about Duntsch to the Texas Medical Board and to the hospitals he worked at described his practice in superlative terms. They used phrases like ‘the worst surgeon I’ve ever seen.’ One doctor I spoke with, brought in to repair one of Duntsch’s spinal fusion cases, remarked that it seemed Duntsch had learned everything perfectly just so he could do the opposite. Another doctor compared Duntsch to Hannibal Lecter three times in eight minutes.”
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