Author: Scott Welch
Means-testing Medicare, a long-running controversy in health policy debates, is re-emerging as a major source of tension for Democrats seeking a path forward on their stalled social spending package. Centrist lawmakers are demanding that an expansion of the program to cover dental, vision and hearing care be limited to the poorest Americans, to pare the ...
Employer group health plans cannot deny benefits to customers who have not gotten the COVID-19 vaccine but can offer premium discounts to customers who decide to get the shot, new guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said. But plans that increase premiums on the unvaccinated will have that increase count toward ...
Americans are paying pharmaceutical companies more for the world's 20 blockbuster drugs than the rest of the world combined, according to an analysis of company financial filings by Public Citizen.
When House Democrats made their pitch for the majority ahead of the 2018 midterms, party leaders focused their message on “kitchen table” economic issues — and one in particular that, according to polls and focus groups, resonated broadly across America’s political divides.
Average Medicare Advantage plan premiums are expected to hit $19 per month next year, a slight decline from the $21.22 in 2021.
Hours after the Supreme Court in 2012 narrowly upheld the Affordable Care Act but rejected making Medicaid expansion mandatory for states, Obama administration officials laughed when asked whether that would pose a problem. In a White House briefing, top advisers to President Barack Obama told reporters states would be foolish to turn away billions in ...
Nearly three-quarters of metropolitan statistical areas are concentrated health insurance markets, according to a new study from the American Medical Association (AMA). The analysis (PDF) found that 73% of MSAs are highly concentrated, based on Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission horizontal merger guidelines. In 91% of markets, a single insurer had a market share of ...
Surveys have shown that as many as half of unvaccinated workers say they will leave their jobs if they’re forced to get the COVID-19 shot, but in reality few of them actually quit. That’s according to an article in The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization that covers academic research. Researchers looked at companies that have vaccine ...
Top House Democrats are voicing a new willingness to pare down their ambitious health care proposals within the sweeping $3.5 trillion social spending bill as they scramble to build consensus ahead of a potential vote this week.
California continues to have the lowest levels of coronavirus transmission in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.