The sticky issue of charity care — health care delivered by a hospital without the expectation of payment — got a lot of attention last week.

A circuit court judge in St. Louis, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and members…

Whatever else is said or done in the next 18 months about reforming the American health care system, tectonic shifts already are well underway.
The latest evidence comes from a new Census Bureau report released last week. It found that the…

The older you get, the more likely you are to develop a chronic illness such as heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer. The more chronic illnesses you have, the more health care you need.
The inevitability of illness is…

Having health insurance used to mean that if you got sick, you’d get all the medical care you needed. Not any more.
A new survey from the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change found significant increases in the number of…

The St. Louis-based Missouri Foundation For Health gives away about $60 million a year to nonprofit groups that provide medical care to the poor and uninsured. The foundation has paid for kids’ dental care; provided the cervical cancer vaccine to…

If it were put to a simple up-or-down vote today, Missouri lawmakers probably would agree to extend health insurance coverage to about 55,000 working parents who are struggling to raise their children.
But that’s not going to happen. Extending health insurance…

I am only in my third week at the Post-Dispatch, having returned to town fulltime on April 20 after a more than six year absence.

I have been back at least once a year to visit family, but this really…