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A report yesterday from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) on federal response to medical countermeasure injury compensation claims—primarily about COVID and flu vaccines—reveals that, during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic, claims spiked to 27 times the typical number received, and less than 3% of the claims were eligible for compensation. About half of the claims were related to COVID vaccination. The vast majority of money paid for claims, however—more than $6 million—was for harms tied to the H1N1 flu vaccine. (Wappes, 12/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: ‘Bill Of The Month’: The Series That Dissects And Slashes Medical Bills

Over 6½ years ago, �鶹Ů�� Health News and NPR kicked off “Bill of the Month,” a crowdsourced investigation highlighting the impact of medical bills on patients. The goal was to understand how the U.S. health care system generates outsize bills and to empower patients with strategies to avoid them. We asked readers and listeners to submit their bills — and they kept coming. “Bill of the Month” has received nearly 10,000 submissions, each a picture of a health system’s dysfunction and the financial burden it places on the patients. (Rosenthal, 12/20)

Health care companies are ending 2024 in the hot seat. Yet some of the pressures they're facing have been mounting all year — or longer. This month's killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson thrust his company, and his industry, into the spotlight. It also sparked widespread consumer reckoning over denied claims and the high costs of care in the United States, where health care is the most expensive in the world. Now lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are stepping up their scrutiny of the industry. (Aspan, 12/20)

Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed a murder case against the suspect in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, holding out the possibility of the death penalty even after a trial on separate state charges. The federal criminal complaint against the suspect, Luigi Mangione, 26, includes one count of using a firearm to commit murder, which carries a maximum potential sentence of death, along with two stalking counts and a firearms offense. (Weiser, 12/19)