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One California cardiology group has confronted steep Medicare cuts with a tactic that may irk patients who already face soaring health costs in that state: Beginning April 1, Pacific Heart Institute, in Santa Monica, will charge some patients annual fees ranging from $500 to $7,500, in addition to the regular fees paid by patients and insurers.
Gold Dust Saloon owner Ruth McDonald uses an innovative “three share” model to provide health coverage for her workers. The restaurant is one of 30 employers in a Colorado program that provides low-cost coverage to small businesses.
While President Obama hit the road with a campaign-style sales pitch for his health care overhaul, House Democratic leaders continued their behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and wooing. The goal: to persuade at least 216 of their 253-member caucus to back the bill.
Over the weekend, White House officials urged the House of Representatives to vote on the Senate-passed health overhaul bill.
Over the weekend, White House officials urged the House of Representatives to vote on the Senate-passed health overhaul bill. Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Pelosi is still working to assuage concerns from both sides of the ideological base on the issue of abortion. A vote is expected sometime this week.
President Obama will visit Philadelphia and St. Louis this week to continue his push to have Congress pass health overhaul legislation this month.
Incremental proposals would make health care reform more complicated – many of the pieces of the current reform bills are interrelated – but they can provide significant and sustainable changes in the right direction.
A spike in prices charged by the largest Medicare drug plans raises a question about the impact regulated health insurance marketplaces would have on prices.
As part of his campaign to push Congress to pass a health reform bill, President Barack Obama spoke before a crowd in a St. Charles, Missouri high school auditorium.
What if your state helped you turn unused home equity into cash to pay for the care you need when you become old and frail?
Workers at a Portland, Ore., steel mill soon will be able to pick a new type of health insurance: one with financial rewards to use proven treatments and disincentives to use less-effective surgeries and diagnostic tests.
One family in Tampa is trapped in an expensive insurance policy because it covers their 19-year-old daughter, who has a serious digestive disease and has been through several surgeries.
As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ point man on abortion, Richard Doerflinger has emerged as a major player in the health care debate, one likely to play a pivotal role in the outcome.
To help pay for his health care overhaul package, President Obama is proposing that wealthy Americans pay Medicare taxes on the money they make on their investments. The proposal would affect millions of people.
Since the Senate passed its version of a health overhaul Christmas Eve, most of the debate has focused on the politics of the effort. By now, many people have forgotten – if they ever knew – what the bill would actually do.
Finding the right balance between too much and too little care is excruciating and highly personal for physicians, patients and families – one reason it’s not discussed at a national level. This reluctance is mirrored by an unwillingness by lawmakers to confront hard choices on medical spending.
President Obama will visit Philadelphia and St. Louis this week to continue his push to have Congress pass health overhaul legislation this month.
If the Democrats get their way, Blue Cross companies will have to change their business model, so that they act a bit more like the Blue Cross plans of old–the ones that helped schoolteachers, not stockholders.
Under the health bills being debated in Congress, young adults would be required to buy insurance – but they could buy low-cost “catastrophic” plans, requiring high deductibles. That’s igniting a fierce debate whether young adults – sometimes known as the “young invincibles” – would benefit from such plans.
Lawmakers are under intense pressure in the health care debate. The president is hitting the road to reassure nervous House members and shore up support for his plan. Republicans are taking their opposition to the bill directly to the voters, too.
