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As many as 400,000 Pennsylvanians, most of them low-wage workers, will go without coverage next year because Pennsylvania officials have not opted to take federal money available under the health law to expand Medicaid.
The Wisconsin governor, who may have presidential ambitions, wants to take people off BadgerCare and have them shop for subsidized coverage on healthcare.gov.
As open enrollment continues under the health law, insurance columnist answers questions about issues affecting readers.
The Affordable Care Act offers state grants to reward doctors for quality health care.
Insurers battle to increase profits while adapting to health law’s new constraints.
The “pay-it-forward” program has served more than 4,000 adults in the Battle Creek area since 2007.
The state mistakenly told consumers in the “bridge to reform” program that they may have to switch doctors as they transition to Medicaid.
The insurance commissioner and the health insurance industry lobby disagree over President Obama’s plan.
Under the president’s plan, insurers will be permitted to extend this year’s policies into next year, but it’s far from clear that insurers will want to follow through. Some state regulators may not even let them.
In Oregon, the online health marketplace isn’t working for people looking to buy individual policies. But the state has been rapidly expanding Medicaid anyway. In Texas, insurance helpers may face state regulations that would make it even harder to assist people seeking coverage.
The Kaiser Health News story and data on Medicare’s quality payment programs are based on data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) containing the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing and Readmissions Reduction Program adjustment factors for individual hospitals.
The hospitals were rated on two-dozen measures, including surveys of patient satisfaction and death rates.
Medicare gives hospitals bonuses and penalties based on how well they performed on 24 quality measures. This chart shows the average effect by state on hospitals’ Medicare payments during the second year of the program.
This chart shows the payment adjustments for each hospital and how they compared to the bonuses and penalties from last year.
Video: President Obama announced Thursday that insurers will be permitted to extend canceled insurance policies into 2014, due to the difficulties consumers are having enrolling in new insurance coverage through the new online marketplaces.
