Author: Scott Welch

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday that there will be “no need” to shut down the U.S. economy “in any way,” adding that the country has the tools necessary to fight the Omicron variant. The big picture: There is an increase of coronavirus cases, driven by the Delta variant, across the country, and CDC ...

The omicron variant infects around 70 times faster than delta and the original Covid-19 strain, though the severity of illness is likely to be much lower, according to a University of Hong Kong study that adds weight to the early on-ground observations from South African doctors. The supercharged speed of omicron’s spread in the human bronchus was ...

Faced with rising coronavirus cases and growing concerns about the Omicron variant, California is ordering a statewide mask mandate for indoor public spaces to go into effect on Wednesday.

Word & Brown General Agency, an Orange-based provider of insurance and health benefit brokers with more than 500 employees, named current President Jessica Word as its new chief executive.

Employer health insurance costs spiked in 2021, and it remains unclear if this is a one-off course correction or the beginning of a new trend, according to a new Mercer survey.

The head of a Senate panel that oversees Medicare says the Biden administration should use its legal authority to cut back a hefty premium increase soon hitting millions of enrollees, as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers call for action amid worries over rising inflation.

Two of the largest lobbying groups representing physicians and hospitals filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a Biden administration decision on how to implement the law shielding patients from most surprise medical bills. The lawsuit from the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association does not seek to halt the law from going into effect in January. Instead, ...

Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa, according to the first major private study since omicron was first detected last month. The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases, of which 78,000 ...

Almost one-third of Americans skipped necessary medical care in the past three months because they could not afford it, according to a poll released Tuesday. The survey from the West Health Policy Center and Gallup found that 30 percent of participants said they opted out of health care due to the cost — a percentage that tripled from ...

The Senate passed legislation late Thursday that delays nearly 10% in Medicare cuts set to take effect next year, giving providers a major boost. The Senate passed the bill by 59 to 35 on Thursday, sending the legislation to President Biden after a successful House vote earlier this week. The bill included a provision to ...