Health Exchange Hopes to Move Past Troubles in 3rd Go-Round

It's survived an IT meltdown and attempts to kill it in the Legislature. It's now facing the loss of two insurance carriers and an effort to constitutionally ban it.

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Failure of Half of U.S. Health Insurance Co-ops Sparks New GOP Criticism

Several Republicans Thursday heaped blame on the Obama administration for the failure of more than half of the cooperatives set up under the health law to infuse competition into the insurance market. The collapse of 12 out of 23 operating co-ops is providing a fresh opportunity for the GOP to criticize the Affordable Care Act ...

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Uninsured Rate At New Low Under Obamacare

The uninsured rate has fallen to a new low of 9 percent, marking 16.3 million more people with health insurance since ObamaCare’s coverage expansion took effect in 2013, according to data released Thursday. The survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that the uninsured rate was 9 percent in the first six months ...

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Why Kaiser and Dignity Health Decided to Join Forces in Stockton

Dignity Health and Kaiser Permanente have agreed to joint ownership of St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton. Dignity Health will keep an 80 percent ownership interest in the hospital and related operations. Kaiser will buy a 20 percent interest, the two companies announced Monday. The deal is expected to close in mid-2016. The agreement creates ...

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Founders of The Word & Brown Companies Make It Their Business To Help

A section of the wall where Providence Speech and Hearing Center in Orange honors its donors is reserved for a select few “Giant Sequoias” of generosity. Among them are John M. Word III and Edward “Rusty” Brown Jr. The founders of The Word & Brown Cos., an innovator in the area of insurance services and ...

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Regulators Urge Broader Health Networks

The nation’s insurance commissioners are recommending sweeping new standards to address complaints from consumers about limited access to doctors and hospitals in health plans sold under the Affordable Care Act. Limited networks of health care providers are a feature of many insurance policies offered in the public marketplaces, or exchanges, where people with low incomes ...

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Marketplace Plans Covering Out-Of-Network Care Harder To Find

Health plans that offer coverage of doctors and hospitals outside the plan’s network are getting harder to find on the insurance marketplaces, according to two analyses published this week. Two-thirds of the 131 carriers that offered silver-level preferred provider organization plans in 2015 will either drop them entirely or offer fewer of them in January, ...

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Senate Initiates Inquiry Into Spikes of Drug Prices

A Senate committee has started an investigation into the large drug price increases by Turing Pharmaceuticals and three other companies, responding to public concern about escalating prices for critical medicines. The Senate’s Special Committee on Aging requested documents and information on Wednesday from Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals and two other drug makers already under scrutiny for ...

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Small Businesses Snub Obamacare’s SHOP Exchange

After nearly two years in operation and millions of dollars spent in development, the small business health insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act is struggling to catch on. Nationally, about 85,000 people, from 11,000 small businesses, have coverage through the online marketplace known as the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, according ...

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Half of California’s Undocumented Immigrants Could Qualify for Medi-Cal

Half of California’s undocumented immigrants — about 1.4 million — have incomes low enough to qualify for full Medi-Cal benefits should California legislative proposals to offer coverage to the undocumented ever be enacted. That is among the key findings of a Public Policy Institute of California report released Monday night which examines current policy options ...

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