From a planning perspective, Wolfgang Balzer is the perfect health care consumer. Balzer, an engineer, knew for several years he had a hernia that would need to be repaired, but it wasn’t an emergency, so he waited until the time was right.

One day after her 80-year-old mother started hospice care at home last August, Tracy Sellers found herself racing into an emergency room, pushing a wheelchair carrying her mother.

A new study finds that generic drugs are a good deal for consumers; even given the cost-shifting that comes with some health plans, generic prices have gone down steadily in recent years. However, the move to high-deductible health plans means that consumers have seen fewer overall savings than they might have.

Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing to cancel an estimated $81 billion in past-due medical debt owed by Americans as he vies for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination using a platform focused on health care.

Americans may soon be able to get their medical records through smartphone apps as easily as they order takeout food from Seamless or catch a ride from Lyft.

Buying a new car every year would be a very impractical expense. It would also be cheaper than a year’s worth of health care for a family. Why it matters: The cost-shifting and complexity of health insurance can hide its high cost, which crowds out families’ other needs and depresses workers’ wages.