The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "United Health Care" ...
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Code Green: Bleeding Dollars
Code Green: Bleeding Dollars is a yearlong investigation by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review into the major underlying causes behind skyrocketing health care costs in the United States.
Tags: code green; health care costs; hospitals
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"Insurer Targeted HIV Patients to Drop Coverage"
In this four-month investigation, reporter Murray Waas reveals that the prominent insurance company WellPoint was targeting "policyholders recently diagnosed with breast cancer for the wrongful and sometimes illegal termination of their health insurance." Waas interviews several women whose insurance policies were terminated based on "flimsy or questionable evidence." Similarly, the insurance company Fortis was found to be targeting recently diagnosed HIV patients.
Tags: cancer; HIV; breast cancer; Fortis; WellPoint; insurance; United Health Care; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Obama
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Medicating the Military
The stories looked at the nature and scope of the use of prescription drugs in the military community, with a focus on psychiatric medications and painkillers. The reporting found that use of psychiatric medications has risen dramatically in the past several years and some doctors suggest it may be a factor in the military's suicide epidemic of recent years. Reporters found that many psychiatric drugs - including powerful anti-convulsants and anti-psychotic medications - were being used "off label", or in ways not formally approved by the FDA. Reporters found that many troops were taking up to 10 medications at a time in so-called drug cocktails that experts say are untested and unproven in these combinations. Reporters also found that deaths caused by accidental drug overdoses had tripled during the past several years and that the Army's specialty care units were quietly conducting internal investigations and making significant changes to hospital protocols to reduce risk of accidental deaths. Finally, they found that psychiatric drug usage was also up significantly among military children.
Tags: Military; Army; Veteran; Health; Wellness; Medicine; Drugs; Pain killers; Psychiatric Medication; Mental Health; Suicide; Depression; Military Children; Hospital; Prescription
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First, Do No Harm
This investigation focused on lax supervision of doctors-in-training, patient harm and alleged billing fraud at Dallas' premier medical school complex and its primary teaching hospital, which are financed largely by taxpayers. It also examined more broadly questions about medical training, patient care and healthcare fraud at teaching hospitals around the United States.
Tags: doctor training; patient harm; patient care; Medicare fraud; health care; healthcare; Dallas; medical school; hospital; billing fraud; surgery
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Dollar Politics
Health care lobbyists are trying to get their clients' interest represented, which involves millions of dollars going into Capitol Hill. This series examines the connection between money and politics and what it means for health care in the United States. Also, in this series the description that leads politicians and lobbyists to distort the lines between political support and utter corruption is explained.
Tags: corruption; health care; industry; money; Senate; debate; legal; illegal; campaign; committee; meeting
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Why Health Insurers Are Winning
Even though the health reform promises to be of value to everyone, one group would benefit the most. This group is the insurance companies. The interests of the insurance companies have been shaping the health care reform and ensure their own enrichment. This has been done by lobbying, which has influenced the conservative Democrats.
Tags: Health insurance; Health reform; reform; Democrats; Doctors; Insurance; Health care; UnitedHealth; Obama
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The Evidence Gap
The nations' medical bill last year exceeded $2.7 trillin -- nearly as much as the projected total cost of the Iraq war. If it were medical money well spend, there might be few cries to "reform" the American health care system. But by some estimates, one-third or more of the medical care received by patients in this country may be virtually worthless. The nation is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars each year on superfluous treatments -- money that otherwise could by spent, for example , on providing health insurance for every child, woman and man int his country who currently have no coverage. A team of science and business reporters from The New York Times set out to explain how and why the United States is spending so much on health care with so relatively little to show for the money, They discovered a gaping chasm between scientific evidence and the practice of medicine. In an in-depth series of articles, told through real doctors and patients, and based on information they dug up that was frequently unflattering to medical providers, companies and regulators, the Times team documented many disturbing instances of "The Evidence Gap."
Tags: health care; CT angiograms; Avastin; cancer treatment; reckless spending; Food and Drug Administration; mammograms
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Indentured Doctors
Throughout the United States foreign doctors are being cheated out of wages, coerced into unfair contracts and being kept away from medically needy patients because their bosses are the ones sponsoring their visas. They work for medical residency and are allowed to live in cities and rural areas with shortage of physicians so long as they work full-time. The program was started by the government, but since its creation there has been little oversight to the abuse of the doctors.
Tags: work visa; immigration; J-1 doctors; Pahrump; pediatrician; health care;
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The Wexford Files
To save money on its contract with the New Mexico state corrections department, Wexford Health Sources cut costs and provided poor health care to inmates. In the wake of Wexford's cost-cutting, "chronically sick inmates were routinely refused off-site specialty visits. Other inmates waited for days, even weeks, to receive critical prescription drug renewals. Still other inmates were forced to lie in their own feces because basic supplies, like bed sheets, were in such short order." In addition, staffing was a problem in prison medical units due to Wexford not filling vacant positions as yet another means of cost-cutting. In the end, people ranging from "Wexford's top medical officers in New Mexico to nurses and administrative employees" resigned as a result of the effect of the company's belt-tightening on their ability to help patients.
Tags: Prison hospitals; Wexford Health Souces; poor health care; New Mexico prison system
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United HealthCare
United HealthCare "began an aggressive sales campaign targeting the most vulnerable population, the poor and elderly." Hidden cameras found the insurance agents being deceptive, often playing off of fear and sometimes even insulting the customer to make a sale.
Tags: HMO; health care; United HealthCare; elderly; poor; insurance agents; Missouri