The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
In a California lawsuit seeking to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medications at patients’ request, two plaintiffs are physicians with serious illnesses. Both want the option of choosing to end their lives.
UnitedHealthcare is no longer routinely paying for out-of-network emergency room physicians and other specialists even when they work for hospitals in the insurer’s network.
After a decade of short term fixes, the House passed legislation to replace Medicare’s troubled Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR, and replace it with an alternative doctor payment formula. Kaiser Health News’ Mary Agnes Carey and Politico Pro’s Jennifer Haberkorn discuss what’s next for the bill when the Senate returns from recess next month.
A study by health consultant Avalere finds that three-quarters of those eligible for the highest levels of premium help enrolled in marketplace plans, but many others with only slightly higher incomes did not.
California is one of the few states that charge the estates of deceased Medicaid beneficiaries for the cost of their health coverage. A bill is moving through the state legislature to stop the practice.
For more than a decade, doctors who treat Medicare patients have been threatened with pay cuts due to a faulty formula of how doctors are reimbursed. But in a rare bipartisan agreement, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a deal to permanently end the problem and reward quality of care, not quantity.
A provision of the Affordable Care Act that covers some Medicaid administrative costs will help close a $338 million gap in the state’s Medicaid budget, even though Texas has declined to expand the health program for the poor.
Companies that introduced these plans experienced overall savings in the first three years, according to a new study.
A Texas lawmaker, also a surgeon, wants to ensure doctors ‘have the right not to ask’ about gun ownership and is pushing a bill to do just that.
Nurses who are men make nearly $7,700 a year more than female nurses in outpatient settings and nearly $3,900 more annually in hospitals, a study finds.
Delayed refunds, mistakes feared as an understaffed IRS confronts the complexities of the Affordable Care Act.
The financial consequences of not getting insurance and the effort to reconcile premium subsidies with income are new dynamics in the current tax season.
Pairing federal payments with private insurance brings benefits to many but creates dueling bureaucracies for some customers caught between them.
A new report says the costs associated with major depressive disorder and other related conditions affect businesses’ bottom lines.
Several GOP-led states are taking note of Arkansas’ market-based approach to Medicaid expansion, but questions remain about its long-term costs and effectiveness.
A survey by benefits consultant Mercer finds that most large employers already met the law’s requirement to provide coverage to those who work 30 hours or more.
A court ruling about Actavis’s strategy to switch consumers from its top-selling dementia drug, which will lose patent protection this summer, to a newer, patent-protected drug, may define how far drugmakers can go to protect profits from generic rivals.
When informed about the challenge before the high court, about two-thirds said that lawmakers should restore subsidies if the justices strike them down.
A new Utah law allowing children conceived via sperm donation to see the medical histories of their fathers is seen as an exception to otherwise light regulation of assisted reproductive technology in states.
The unheralded move by California tax authorities last August may leave the insurer on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in taxes dating back to 2013. Blue Shield of California is protesting the action.
