Author: Scott Welch

The bipartisan budget deal announced in Congress protects access to health care under the Affordable Care Act but it also ditches one of that law’s main cost controls. The deal would repeal a cost-control measure in “Obamacare” known as the Cadillac Tax, an unpopular levy on benefit-rich health insurance plans scheduled to take effect in 2022.

After seeing a strong surge in enrollment last week, Covered California has extended the deadline until Friday for state residents to sign up for a health insurance policy that would begin covering them on Jan. 1. The original deadline was Sunday.

After months of hearings and negotiations, millions of dollars in attack ads, full-court press lobbying efforts and countless rounds of negotiations, Congress appeared to be moving toward a solution to the nation’s surprise medical bill problem. Sort of.

Patients who seek care at in-network hospitals have a significant risk of being treated by and receiving a surprise bill from out-of-network anesthesiologists, pathologists, radiologists or assistant surgeons, a new study by Yale University researchers found.

Kim Motl doesn’t work in the health insurance industry. But her friends and neighbors do. So when she saw Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Motl pressed the Democratic presidential candidate about her “Medicare for All” plan, which would replace private insurance with a government-run system.

Spending on health care in the state now exceeds $400 billion a year — more than $10,000 per person. That has led to an explosion of political attention, just as agriculture and industrial activity dominated California's political landscape in their heydays.

Telehealth takes a lot of forms these days. Virtual visits with a health care provider can take place by video, phone or text, or via the Web or a mobile app. The one commonality: You get to consult a doctor from your home, the office, Starbucks or anywhere with a wifi or mobile connection.

In a significant new change, California will require people to buy health insurance next year or pay a tax penalty.

Valley fever cases are on the rise in California and across the arid Southwest, and scientists point to climate change and population shifts as possible reasons.

Any day now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans could rule the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. At least it seemed that two of the three appeals court judges were leaning that way during oral arguments in the case, State of Texas v. USA, in July.