Author: Scott Welch
While COVID-19 job losses may have led to uninsurance for some Americans, it doesn’t appear that children’s insurance rates were negatively impacted. In fact, new research suggests that children’s uninsurance rates actually fell between 2019 and 2021. The report, published by Urban Institute this week, looks at survey data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and ...
Democratic senators on Wednesday took a formal step toward reviving President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, starting with a measure to let Medicare negotiate prices with drugmakers and to curb rising drug costs more broadly. A similar proposal died in December when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) decided to oppose Biden’s $1.9 trillion Build Back Better bill, ...
Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks and “Shark Tank” star, has a new online pharmacy that could make your prescription medications more affordable. In January, Cuban announced the launch of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. Currently, 150 generic prescription medications are available on the pharmacy website, costplusdrugs.com. Medications are priced at ...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is responding to the chaos of the covid-19 pandemic by proposing to hide from the public a rating that lets consumers compare hospitals’ safety records and to waive approximately $350 million in financial penalties for roughly 750 hospitals with the worst patient-safety track records. CMS’ chief medical officer, Dr. Lee Fleisher, said those ...
An analysis of three existing payment models found certain screening tools and other designs led to some Medicare beneficiaries being excluded and prompted the creation of a new guide on how to root out bias in models. Researchers with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) outlined in a Health Affairs article troubling instances of implicit ...
John Word was recognized Monday night as one of two health insurance industry “persons of the year” and recipient of the 2022 Harold R. Gordon Memorial Award. John was selected by a committee of past NAHU award recipients who carefully review nominees from across the country nominated for their contributions to the industry.
It would have significantly increased workers’ compensation costs for public and private hospitals by presuming certain diseases and injuries are caused by the workplace and established an extremely concerning precedent for expanding presumptions into the private sector.
California will become the first state to remove immigration status as a barrier to health care, making all low-income undocumented residents eligible for state-subsidized insurance regardless of age. Gov. Gavin Newsom late Sunday announced a budget deal he struck with the Legislature included a new Medi-Cal expansion that would cover more undocumented adults. The program’s ...
An important provision in the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2021 affecting insurance brokers is a federal commission disclosure requirement. The law, which took effect on December 27, 2021, requires brokers and consultants to disclose expected commissions, in writing, to their insurance clients in advance of a new sale, renewal, or change to a health ...
Once again, California’s largest healthcare workers union is campaigning for dialysis reform — but they face powerful opponents. It’s deja-vu for the California political scene, where such a battle transpires repeatedly. This time around, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West is advocating for a ballot initiative that would require a physician assistant, physician or nurse practitioner to ...