Sutter Health HMO Joins California Choice

Sutter Health Plus, the HMO health plan of Sacramento-based Sutter Health, has joined CaliforniaChoice and will offer 12 small group plan designs later this year. Orange-based CaliforniaChoice is a private exchange for employer groups and employees. Sutter recently received approval to join CaliforniaChoice from the state Department of Managed Health Care. Sutter said brokers and ...

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Approaching Health Law Tax Is Not Just A Levy On Luxury

The last major piece of President Barack Obama’s health care law could raise costs for thrifty consumers as well as large corporations and union members when it takes effect in 2018. The so-called Cadillac tax was meant to discourage extravagant coverage. Critics say it’s a tax on essentials, not luxuries. It’s getting attention now because ...

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White House Takes Aim At Medicare And Medicaid Billing Errors

White House budget director Shaun Donovan called for a “more aggressive strategy” to thwart improper government payments to doctors, hospitals and insurance companies in a previously undisclosed letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell earlier this year. Government health care programs covering millions of Americans waste billions of tax dollars every year ...

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Narrower Doctor Choices Coming For Exchange And Employer Plans

As health care costs rise a bit faster than recent years, look for more health plans offered by employers and on public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act to pare their lists of doctor and hospital choices for 2016. Health insurers are already disclosing plans to maintain their business on government run exchanges under the ...

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Nevada Health Insurance Co-Op To Shut Down in 2016

Nevada’s health insurance co-op will be closing down on January 1 next year. The co-op was established through the Affordable Care Act and serves as a non-profit insurance organization that is meant to provide consumers with more options when it comes to affordable coverage. The problem, however, is that the co-op has struggled to meet ...

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Nevada Health Link to See Premium Increase in 2016 Health Insurance Rates

The Nevada Division of Insurance said Wednesday that it has approved 2016 health insurance rates for individual and small-group coverage. For small businesses and their employees, premiums will rise an average of 5 percent, the division said. Consumers who buy a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange will see an average premium ...

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Special Session Bills Keep On Coming

Three more bills were introduced last week in the California Legislature’s special session on health. That brings the total to 30 bills in the special session — and counting. Bills on tobacco regulation, bills on end-of-life issues, on food labeling and on what to do with cadaveric fetal tissue. All of that is a far ...

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Gov. Brown Creates New Online Security Center

Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the creation of a new security center Monday that will be responsible for strengthening online security to prevent cyber-attacks on state agencies. Brown signed an executive order to create the California Cybersecurity Integration Center to help reduce the likelihood of online attacks that that could leave the state and its residents ...

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Many California Seniors Need Help Paying for Health Care, Other Expenses

About 340,000 California residents ages 65 and older have incomes below the federal poverty level, but many more likely need assistance in paying for medical care, food and other expenses,according to a brief released Monday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, KPCC’s “KPCC News” reports. Details of Brief The federal poverty level in ...

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Lawmakers Face Deadline for finding Medi-Cal Fix

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers hope to tackle major issues in the state’s health care program for the poor over the next two weeks, starting with how to ensure the state doesn’t lose $1 billion in federal funding. The potential billion-dollar loss comes as critics say Medi-Cal is already struggling to meet the needs of the ...

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