The Supreme Court will determine the future of free preventative care
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
It's the law that insurance companies have to cover the costs of certain screenings for cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases and more. Patients could soon have to pick up more of the tab, however, if the Supreme Court sides with two Texas businesses. And later: Ukraine says it's signed a memorandum of intent to sell minerals to the U.S., and sportswear brands are cashing in on running's growing popularity.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Is it right that insurance companies have to pay the whole bill to check a person for, say, diabetes or cancer? |
| 0:07.9 | I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. |
| 0:10.1 | It is the law that insurance companies have to pay the entire costs of certain screenings for cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases, and more. |
| 0:18.4 | But patients can soon have to pick up more of the tab if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with two Texas businesses. |
| 0:25.4 | This is the fourth time the justices are hearing a challenge to the Affordable Care Act. |
| 0:29.8 | With a high court decision due this year, Alex Olgan reports. |
| 0:33.7 | Convincing patients to get mammograms, reproductive care, and colonoscopies are a huge part of Allison Ruff's job as a primary care doctor at the University of Michigan. |
| 0:42.9 | I spent three years probably convincing this one male patient in his 60s to get his colonoscopy. |
| 0:50.5 | She says he finally got the procedure and told Ruff, doctors found and removed a pre-cancerous |
| 0:55.9 | growth. He was totally overwhelmed. He was like, thank you, Doc. They were able to remove it |
| 1:00.9 | completely. I don't have cancer. But if we'd waited another year, it would have been a very different |
| 1:06.6 | conversation. Since 2010, screenings for colon cancer, chronic diseases, and vaccinations have |
| 1:12.9 | increased. That's when the Affordable Care Act required insurers to pay for these kinds of |
| 1:17.8 | important preventive care. High value things should be cheap and low value things should be expensive. |
| 1:24.9 | This idea that Dr. Mark Fendrick and a colleague came up with is called |
| 1:29.1 | value-based insurance design. He now runs a center with that name at the University of Michigan. |
| 1:35.1 | Fendrick's idea made it into the ACA. Now, every year, an independent panel of doctors and medical |
| 1:40.9 | experts update which preventive care should be free for patients. |
| 1:45.0 | And one of the great things about it is it's a gift that keeps on giving. |
| 1:48.8 | But in 2020, two Texas businesses disagreed. |
| 1:52.4 | They say in court filings the requirement to pay for HIV prevention meds, contraception, and STD testing, |
| 1:58.9 | violates, through company company insurance the religious beliefs. |
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