Health Care

New Health Care Mandates Would Reduce Premiums, Increase Coverage: Report

By Michael Rainey

Health insurance premiums in the federal marketplace would cost 11.8 percent less in 2019 if all 50 states adopted coverage mandates, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund and the Urban...
Association Health Care Plans Not Gaining Traction

By Michael Rainey

The influential National Federation of Independent Business long supported the expansion of association health care plans, which allow small businesses and trade groups to join together to offer...
Consumer Directed Health Plans: A Step in the Right Direction

By Tracy C. Miller

Recently, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health has been considering ways to expand consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs). These plans — which essentially balance high deductibles with...
Lawmakers Battle Over Veterans Health Funding

By Yuval Rosenberg

A complicated fight over spending on a veterans health program is throwing a wrench into the congressional appropriations process for 2019. The showdown could force lawmakers to fall back on another...
New Indexes Track Rising Drug Prices

By Yuval Rosenberg

Bloomberg News today introduced price indexes for some of the most common and best-known drugs. The indexes cover 40 of the most widely used treatments across six categories: “diabetes, cancer, HIV,...

Former HHS Secretary Tom Price Wasted More Than $300,000 on Travel

By Michael Rainey

President Trump’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price improperly spent at least $341,000 on travel, according to an Inspector General report issued Friday. The IG reviewed 21 trips...
Medicaid Insurers Could Be Doing More to Catch Fraud and Abuse: Report

By Yuval Rosenberg

Medicaid insurers could be doing more to prevent fraud, waste and abuse that cost states billions of dollars a year, according to a new report released by the Office of Inspector General of the...
Some Drugmakers Are Canceling Price Hikes – but Not Because of Trump

By Yuval Rosenberg

Pfizer may have decided to roll back drug price hikes after being criticized by President Trump, but Bloomberg reports that several other large drugmakers are canceling or reducing planned price...
What Pfizer’s Drug Price Hike Reversal Really Means

By Yuval Rosenberg

After being publicly blasted by President Trump and then having an “extensive discussion” with him, drug giant Pfizer announced Tuesday that it will roll back the price hikes that took effect July 1...
Democrats Rally Against Threats To The ACA To Block Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee

By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News

Senate Democrats, who are divided on abortion policy, are instead turning to health care as a rallying cry for opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. Specifically, they are...

How Kennedy’s SCOTUS Replacement Could Open the Door to Medicaid Cuts

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Axios’ Caitlin Owens says the next Supreme Court justice could give states more power to cut Medicaid. The legal issue in question is whether private health care providers can sue over Medicaid...
Americans Want to Keep Obamacare Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions

By Yuval Rosenberg

Americans of all political stripes favor keeping the Affordable Care Act’s provisions prohibiting insurers from denying care or charging more to people with pre-existing medical conditions, according...
The High Toll of High-Deductible Health Care Plans

By Yuval Rosenberg

Bloomberg looks at an important trend in health care coverage: the rise of employer-based high-deductible plans that mean many patients and families simply can’t afford to get sick. Some companies...
Health Care Prices Are Now the GOP’s Problem

By Yuval Rosenberg

Republicans have a health care problem on their hands. Rising health care costs and Affordable Care Act premiums that are set to jump by double digits for 2019 could fuel voter anger, Politico’s Paul...
Last Chance to Repeal the Affordable Care Act?

By Michael Rainey

A conservative group released a proposal Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act in August and give control over health care to the states, The Wall Street Journal reports . The proposal from the...