Latest KFF Health News Stories
1.46 Million Determined To Be Eligible for Medicaid And CHIP In October
After two months of media shellacking, healthcare.gov website woes and a series of skeptical congressional grillings, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was accentuating the positive, noting the jump in the number of people eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. More than 1.46 million people were determined eligible for Medicaid or […]
Attention Second Guessers: Even A Tech Giant Can Flub An Insurance Exchange
This story comes from our partner Oregon has spent more than $40 million to build its own online health care exchange. It gave that money to a Silicon Valley titan, Oracle, but the result has been a disaster of missed deadlines, a nonworking website and a state forced to process thousands of insurance applications on […]
Video: Problems Remain With Healthcare.gov Website
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey joined PBS NewsHour Monday to discuss the bug fixes to the federal health insurance marketplace and the problems that remain to be addressed. Watch the report in the video player above.
California’s Small Business Insurance SHOP Opens, A Contrast To Feds
Just a few days after the federal government delayed online enrollment, California announced better news for small businesses who want to buy health insurance. Businesses with up to 50 employees can begin signing up online for coverage through the state’s new marketplace, officials announced Monday. Last week, the federal department of Health and Human Services said that businesses in 36 […]
Consumer Data Errors, Other Bugs Reduced At Healthcare.gov, Administration Says
For the first time since its mangled Oct. 1 launch, users can now go to the federal government’s insurance enrollment website and get detailed information about the costs and benefits of health plans in their county without first enrolling. Before this week, the “window shopping” feature on healthcare.gov showed only average monthly premium prices until […]
How Is Healthcare.gov Performing Now?
KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey was on NPR’s “Tell Me More” Monday morning to give an update on how the federal government’s troubled website for buying health insurance is performing. Officials said the site would be working for most people by Dec. 1 after a problem-plagued rollout in October kept many people from enrolling in coverage. […]
Many Consumers Report Improvements With Healthcare.gov
Vickie Fleisher-Gann had been trying since Oct. 1 to complete her Obamacare application so she could start shopping for insurance on healthcare.gov, but she kept getting stopped by error messages. With her policy expiring at the end of the year, she feared time was running out. On Sunday morning, the former Harrisburg, Pa., hospital administrator finally was able to […]
Breaking Up With Healthcare.gov
Enrolling in healthcare.gov is not easy. In Alaska, just 53 people enrolled in the first month. Anchorage hair stylist Lara Imler is one of the few who got through. Now though, after she discovered problems with her application, Imler wants to cancel her enrollment. “I don’t even know how to feel about the whole thing […]
The Iowa Insurance Challenge: Rural Outreach
DES MOINES, Iowa – Broadlawns Medical Center has been serving low-income residents here and the surrounding countryside for decades. And now, there’s a new aspect to its public hospital mission – offering people help to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. On a recent Saturday morning, Jerrine Sanford came half an hour […]
Should Consumers Give Healthcare.gov A Second Chance?
This KHN story was produced in partnership with As you probably know from all of the talking (and screaming) heads on TV, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) stumbled out of the gate with a glitch-ridden enrollment site, cancellation of some insurance policies and other technical glitches that have made Steve Jobs roll over in his […]
Doctors Groups Share Concerns About Narrow Networks, Confusion With White House
The nation’s top physician groups told White House officials Tuesday they are worried about what consumers will encounter after Jan. 1, when millions are expected to gain coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The groups expressed worries that patients may unknowingly be signing up for “narrow network” plans that don’t include their current physician or […]
8 Senate Democrats Seek Obamacare Enrollment ‘Alternative’
Eight Senate Democrats — including key leadership member Charles Schumer of New York — told the Obama administration Monday that they “continue to be troubled by the ongoing technical difficulties” with healthcare.gov and want an alternative way for insurers and web-based brokers to enroll subsidy-eligible consumers. “There are long-term advantages to providing Americans multiple ways […]
The Affordable Care Act is good for young adults because it’ll save them money on health care, leaving them more to spend on liquor and birth control. That’s one way to interpret the message from a provocative new ad campaign in Colorado. Not everyone is thrilled with it. In a federal hearing in October, Rep. […]
Obamacare Deadline For Jan. 1 Coverage Extended One Week
Consumers will have an extra week — until Dec. 23 — to enroll in health insurance coverage that begins Jan. 1, Obama administration officials said Friday. Millions of consumers have been frustrated by their inability to sign up for coverage through healthcare.gov, the federal website for residents of 36 states, which went public Oct. 1. While […]
Troubled Health Law Rollout Damages Public Support
With its troubled rollout of the new insurance marketplaces, the Obama administration has achieved something Republicans have failed to do: seriously dent the popularity of the health care law, according to poll released Friday. Nearly half of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of the law and only a third like it, according to the […]
Covered California To Canceled Policy Holders: You’ll Have To Buy A New Plan
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California did not take President Obama up on his offer to extend canceled health policies. The five-member board that oversees California’s health insurance marketplace, known as Covered California, voted unanimously Thursday to stay the course and cancel policies that didn’t meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The board’s decision had […]
Safety-Net Hospitals Lose More Under Medicare’s Quality-Based Payments, Analysis Finds
Medicare’s effort to reward hospitals for quality is leaving many of the nation’s safety-net hospitals poorer, a new analysis finds. Dr. Ashish K. Jha, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, has found that hospitals treating the most low-income patients on average had their payment rates reduced by 0.09 percent in the latest […]
3 State Exchange Leaders Try To Get Good News Out
Democrats in states running their own exchanges are seeking to put a more positive spin on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, despite the mostly negative news coming out of Washington. “What we’re seeing is incredible momentum,” Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said during a conference call for reporters held by Families […]
Practical Challenges For Insurers Studying Whether To Extend Canceled Plans
On PBS NewsHour Friday, KHN’s Julie Appleby discussed what insurers are weighing as they decide whether or not to extend previously canceled health insurance policies into 2014. Watch the report in the video player above.
Florida Regulator, Blues Plan Agree To Insurance Fix Proposed By Obama
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said he will allow insurers to adopt President Barack Obama’s plan to extend current policies facing cancellation so that consumers can keep the coverage they have now. In fact, he was permitting plans to do that months before the president suggested it. Most carriers will be unaffected because the state had […]
