The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
How many times have you heard President Obama say, “Health insurers won’t be able to drop your coverage just because you get sick?” Or Kathleen Sebelius? Or the Democratic leadership in Congress? Or the mainstream news media? You would think that the private health insurance industry was being revolutionized.
The new health law mandates that insurers cannot pay less for emergency care in “out-of-network” hospitals and eases consumer worries about having to pre-authorize an emergency room visit.
Want to understand how the new health law might affect you? Be prepared to spend some time online.
The Partnership for Health in Aging released a set of 23 skills that all health care professionals – doctors, dentists, nurses, social workers and others – should have by the time they receive their degrees.
Florida Health Choices, a deregulated health-insurance market for small businesses, is two years old and still not selling any products. It would be well-positioned to develop into the exchange called for under the new federal law. But that would require political and philosophical compromises that its leaders may not be willing to make.
Today the Obama administration issued proposed regulations to implement a provision in the health care law that would allow adult children to stay on their parents’ health insurance policy until age 26.
Wisconsin’s transparent health care costs and outcomes initiative is lowering costs.
The thinking behind the individual mandate is that, in the absence of a government-run “single payer” insurance program like Canada’s, the only way to achieve universal health insurance is to require people to obtain coverage on their own, with government assistance for those who can’t afford it. An excerpt from a new book, Landmark: The Inside Story of America’s New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All, by The Washington Post.
A simple rule lies at the heart of the new health law: Starting in 2014, almost every American will need to carry health insurance or pay a fine. An excerpt from a new book, Landmark: The Inside Story of America’s New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All, by The Washington Post.
Business and consumer groups are sparring over rules that might allow existing health plans to sidestep some patient protections in new health care law.
People who are dying currently can’t get Medicare to pay for hospice care if they continue aggressive curative treatment. But the new health overhaul law could lead to a major change in olicy that allows both hospice and curative care.
Companies that provide health insurance to retirees who are too young for Medicare may get some financial relief due to a new $5 billion federal program.
Today, we begin a new Friday afternoon feature: a wrap-up of the week’s major health policy news coverage.
You might think the fight over mental health parity – the requirement that health insurance plans not handle coverage for mental ailments any differently than coverage for any other disorder – would be over. You would, however, be wrong.
Unless clarifications are made in the financial overhaul legislation currently pending in Congress, doctors and dentists — as well as other health practitioners — are concerned that they will face hefty costs and paperwork burdens.
Public health officials and a host of prevention and wellness groups have sharply different ideas about how to spend a big pot of new federal prevention money
Public health officials and a host of prevention and wellness groups have sharply different ideas about how to spend a big pot of new federal prevention money
For the third time this year, Congress has just days to avert a scheduled 21 percent cut in pay to doctors who treat seniors and others on the Medicare program. And no one seems to be able to figure out how to solve the problem in anything except a stopgap way.
A new commission created by the health law is supposed to ensure that in 2015, Medicare spending is supposed to be limited to a fixed growth rate.
Too many nonprofit hospitals fail to adequately publicize their charity-care programs, two advocacy groups say in a survey report released today.
