When Caitlin Wells Salerno and Jon Salerno's first son, Hank, was born, his delivery cost the family only $30. Gus' bill came in at more than $16,000, all told — including the $2,755 ER charge. The family was responsible for about $3,600 of the total. Rae Ellen Bichell/KHN hide caption
Nurses check on a patient in a Jonesboro, Ark., ICU in August when the delta variant sparked yet another surge of serious COVID-19 cases in the region. The pandemic has only added to a longstanding nursing shortage in the U.S., statistics show. Houston Cofield/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Hospitals around the U.S., including large academic medical centers like Vanderbilt University's in Nashville, Tenn., have been forced to rely on traveling nurses to keep their intensive care units fully staffed. The demand for travel nurses has driven up their hourly rates, which then motivates more staff nurses to leave in pursuit of a traveling gig. Blake Farmer/WPLN hide caption
Registered nurse Christie Lindog works at the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, Calif., on Sept. 2. Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Travis Warner of Dallas got tested for the coronavirus at a free-standing emergency room in June 2020 after one of his colleagues tested positive for the virus. The emergency room bill included a $54,000 charge for one test. Laura Buckman for KHN hide caption
According to the State Department, 14 au pair agencies operate in the U.S. These private companies are required to offer the child care workers who contract with them basic health coverage. But the plans often amount to emergency or travel insurance — not the kind of full coverage ACA health plans offer. Petri Oeschger/Getty Images hide caption
A civil suit filed by the Justice Department this week links exaggerated patient bills to tens of millions of dollars in overcharges by Medicare Advantage plans. A data analytics team facilitated the fraud, the lawsuit alleges. John Lund/Getty Images hide caption
Ely Bair had two medically necessary jaw surgeries. For the first, in 2018, his share of the bill was $3,000. For the second, in 2019 after a job change, he was billed $27,000, even though he had the same insurance carrier. Jovelle Tamayo for Kaiser Health News hide caption
Then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (left) and President Donald Trump listen as Moncef Slaoui of Operation Warp Speed speaks about the crash program to develop a COVID-19 vaccine in the White House Rose Garden in May 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption
Jameson Rybak, son of Jim and Suzanne Rybak of Florence, S.C., struggled with opioid addiction and died of an overdose on June 9, 2020 — three months after he left a hospital ER because he feared he couldn't afford treatment. Gavin McIntyre/Kaiser Health News hide caption
Many hospitals around the country, including Medstar Washington Hospital in Washington, D.C., have started sharing their prices online in compliance with a recent federal rule. Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Kathleen McAuliffe, a home care worker for Catholic Charities in a Portland, Maine, suburb, helps client John Gardner with his weekly chores. McAuliffe shops for Gardner's groceries, cleans his home and runs errands for him during her weekly visit. Brianna Soukup/Kaiser Health News hide caption
In this 2009 photo, Stephen Cox (left), Mike Forte (center), and Maria Gallo (right), all medical students then, were busy studying a cadaver in the lab at Rocky Vista University's Parker, Colo., campus. Rocky Vista, a for-profit institution, last month received the green light for an accredited satellite campus in Billings, Mont. Ken Lyons/Denver Post via Getty Images hide caption