Month: May 2017
The American Health Care Act, set for a House vote Thursday, would transform the nation’s health insurance system and create a new slate of winners and losers.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday said he doesn't have a problem if the Senate wants to write its own healthcare bill.
At a recent town hall, California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein was unfairly criticized for expressing concern about proposed state legislation to create a “single-payer” health care system for California. Her concerns are well founded. The practical reality is that setting up a single-payer system, especially for just one state, is unworkable.
About half of U.S. doctors received payments from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries in 2015, amounting to $2.4 billion, a new study reports.
Health insurer Anthem is not ready to give up its $48-billlion bid to buy rival Cigna and now hopes to find a favorable audience in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Under the Republican health bill, it’s up to states whether to dismantle key parts of the Affordable Care Act. Red, or GOP-leaning, states are sure to be interested in rolling back the law’s coverage requirements and freeing insurers to charge people more when they have preexisting conditions.
If it becomes law, the American Health Care Act will have the biggest effects on people who buy their own insurance or get coverage through Medicaid. But it also means changes for the far larger employer health system.
Health insurers are asking for sharp increases in the cost of their Obamacare plans next year, thanks to instability in the law’s coverage markets that’s been compounded by the Trump administration.
If the American Health Care Act ultimately becomes law, states will have the option to once again let insurers on the individual market charge those with preexisting conditions more than healthy people. Among the more contentious pieces of the AHCA, which the House of Representatives passed narrowly on Thursday, is a provision allowing states to request waivers to rules otherwise forbidding higher premiums based on a person’s health status. To get a waiver, states would have to explain how their approach would reduce premium growth and increase enrollment or competition; a late amendment to the bill added $8 billion to help defray higher costs to individuals with health conditions.
You may have read the California State Senate Health Committee recently approved Senate Bill (S.B.) 562, a measure that would create a single-payer health care system in the Golden State. It will next be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee – where it is sure to face tough questions about funding for the sweeping overhaul of the health insurance system in California.