Supreme Court Seems Sympathetic To Insurers In Obamacare Case
Justices from the right and left ask whether Congress needs to keep its promises.
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Justices from the right and left ask whether Congress needs to keep its promises.
The case revolves around a health law provision designed to help insurers recover some losses because they had an unusually high number of sick and expensive customers. Insurers complain that when Republican lawmakers discontinued funding the program, it was like “Lucy Van Pelt pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.”
Members of Congress and others complain Medicare’s revamped Plan Finder had problems. Federal officials say they can help consumers who got bad information change their plans next year. But details about how switching will work are yet to come.
The annual accounting of national health spending is out. And the 2018 health bill for the U.S. was $3.6 trillion, consuming nearly a fifth of the nation’s economy. Meanwhile, Congress is nearing the end of the year without having finished either its annual spending bills or several other high-priority health items. Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. Also, Rovner interviews KHN’s Markian Hawryluk about the latest KHN-NPR “Bill of the Month.”
As alarms proliferate, hospitals are working to sort through the cacophony that can overwhelm staff and cause them to overlook real signs of harm.
Despite laws requiring that health care providers hand over copies of patient records in a timely fashion, many people have trouble getting theirs. Ciitizen, a Palo Alto, Calif., company that helps cancer patients with the task, recently published a scorecard that rates hospitals, doctors and clinics on their compliance with records requests.
The final directive drew swift responses from the hospital and insurance industries. The Trump administration also released a proposed rule that would require health insurers to spell out for all services beforehand just how much patients may owe for their out-of-pocket costs.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don’t have to.
Montana is one of several states that want Medicaid recipients to prove they work a steady, minimum number of hours monthly. Will federal courts allow the Montana rule change to stand?
Legionnaires’ disease cases hit an all-time high in 2018, with eight times more cases than 20 years ago. Even though many facilities in Missouri and elsewhere have water management plans in place to deal with the potentially deadly disease, they are still finding the underlying bacteria that causes it in their water.
Federal officials unveil new ratings for the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace plans. Missouri is one of eight states that has no plans earning at least three stars on a five-star scale.
In what experts call an "epidemic of immobility," older hospital patients remain stuck in bed, their movements tracked by loud and ineffective bed alarms, losing muscle mass that's key to their health and daily functioning.
For more than a decade, customers used the online plan finder to compare dozens of policies. Yet after a redesign of the website, the search results no longer list which plan offers a customer the best value. Federal officials say it will be fixed before enrollment begins next week.
In a Q&A with Kaiser Health News, Tennessee Medicaid Director Gabe Roberts says state officials are requesting a modified block grant from federal officials because it would save money and allow the state to keep some of that savings.
The Freedom of Information Act lawsuit could spur the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to release audits that document up to $650 million in overcharges.
Wyoming is taking on expensive air ambulance bills by trying to expand Medicaid to cover transport for all patients. This is a big change: a red state seeking to control what's been a growing free-market bonanza.
Critics worry the delays come at a steep cost: Medicare paying for millions of unnecessary exams and patients subject to radiation for no medical benefit.
An enhanced government effort to catch insurers that overcharge Medicare faces resistance from the insurance industry.
Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes wades through hundreds of health care policy stories each week, so you don't have to.
A new report by the inspector general for HHS shows prescriptions to treat opioid addiction are way up in recent years, while prescriptions for the painkillers have fallen.
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