Latest KFF Health News Stories
After The Deluge: Health Reform Without An Individual Mandate
As challenges to the health law’s individual mandate wind their way through the courts, it is important to focus on the real question: what happens to the health law if this provision is ultimately struck down?
Judges Reviewing Health Law Say Penalty Is Not A Tax
Congress took great pains to ensure that the penalty imposed on people who don’t get health insurance was not called a tax in the health law. This could make it tough for the Justice Department to argue that it is a tax.
Pennsylvania Closing State Health Plan For Low-Income Adults
Few options are available for the 42,000 people losing coverage.
State Worker Backlash Spreads Across The Country
The public employee backlash against Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to help balance the state’s budget by imposing higher health care and pension co-pays is spreading across the nation, as newly-elected conservative governors seek to roll back benefits granted during better economic times.
GOP Counts The Ways To Defund Health Law
House Republicans have come up with more than half a dozen ways to throttle spending on overhaul. Democrats in the Senate can block them, and President Obama still wields the veto pen.
House Republicans passed measures to defund implementation of the health law, while the Obama administration fires back, rescinding a regulation they say could jeopardize patient access to care. Watch the video.
Sebelius Squad’s Mission: Medicaid Savings
The Obama administration is dispatching aides to states to offer advice on holding down spending on the program for the poor.
Health On The Hill: Republicans Take Steps To Defund Health Law Implementation, Planned Parenthood
As part of legislation to keep the government funded through March 4, House Republicans passed a series of amendments aimed at defunding implementation of the health care law. Separately, the Obama administration rescinded part of a 2008 conscience clause regulation they said could impact patients’ access to medical care.
New Contraception Rules Spark ‘Conscience Clause’ Debate
Religious exemptions that allow health care workers to decline certain services to patients if they have a religious exemption should not include contraception. That’s the bottom line of the administration’s new regulations on the “conscience clause.”
All Governors Should Just Say No To ObamaCare
Those who believe the health law is unconstitutional have a solemn obligation not to implement it.
Health Law Forces Changes To Reduce Hospitals Readmissions
20 percent of Medicare patients are back in the hospital within 30 days, a trend that endangers patients and raises health costs.
States Pushing Managed Long-Term Care For Elderly And Disabled Medicaid Patients
Some patient advocates, as well as the nursing home industry, object to using managed care for such vulnerable patients, but health plans say they can provide quality services while holding down costs.
Texas Presses For Money-Saving Medicaid Changes
The Lone Star State isn’t seeking to opt out of Medicaid anymore, but it’s joining other states in pressing Washington for more flexibility in running the program.
In addition to shifting nearly all Medicaid patients to HMOs and other managed care, the Senate’s proposal would cap spending, require plans to bid for business and impose $100 fees on patients who abuse the emergency room.
States Seeking To Cut Medicaid Rolls Get Some Help
Federal officials are walking a fine line trying to satisfy the demands of budget-strapped governors who want to cut their Medicaid programs.
Hardliners On Health Law: End It, Don’t Mend It
The conservative group FreedomWorks recommends a system of vouchers to replace Medicare, Medicaid and provisions of the new health law.
Health On The Hill Transcript: President Obama’s Health Budget Scrutinized
Jackie Judd of the Kaiser Family Foundation is joined by Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News and David Nather of Politico to talk about the president’s 2012 proposed budget and a House bill that would repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that small businesses find particularly onerous.
Video: Obama Signals Willingness To Work With GOP On Health Care Entitlement Spending
President Obama said Tuesday that he is willing to work with Republicans to help address the “huge problems” of high Medicare and Medicaid spending.
Answering The Obama Budget Critics…
For all of those people who are furious about President Obama’s budget, here’s an important question: Do you have a more fiscally responsible and politically viable alternative?
A Slippery Slope To Defunding The Health Law
As the House considers its repeal of the health law’s unpopular 1099 reporting provision, the measure’s premium tax credits are being eyed as a possible pay-for.