Author: Scott Welch
Braidwood oral arguments are set for April 21. A policy expert says many states will maintain the current standards, even if the federal rules go away
Congress could consider updating the provision in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act that preempts states’ efforts to regulate employee benefits. Analysts at the Congressional Research Service, an in-house research center that helps members of Congress and their aides understand the matters they’re working on, mention that possibility in a new report on recent U.S. Supreme Court ...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will cut 10,000 full-time jobs and shut down several health agencies in an effort to restructure the department. The department will downsize from 82,000 to 62,000, because 10,000 workers have already taken early retirement and voluntary separation offers from the Trump administration. Although the massive layoffs have been part ...
Nonprofit hospitals’ 2024 financial performances are beating the prior year’s tough numbers, though even the stronger organizations remain “well below pre-pandemic levels,” Fitch Ratings said. In a Thursday brief describing the financial profiles of its rated nonprofit hospitals, the agency attributed the year-to-year improvements to stronger revenues and volumes as well as slightly mitigated, but ...
State, county and city governments are eager to hire former federal agency staffers targeted in DOGE cuts. But matching worker skills to local needs is a challenge.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says sweeping layoffs and restructuring in the department will bring order to a bureaucracy he claims is in “pandemonium.” But experts say the overhaul also likely gives him far greater control over dozens of federal health agencies. Why it matters: HHS has long functioned like a decentralized ...
Sleep specialists have long warned of the hazards of bringing smartphones into the bedroom. Now, research has confirmed just how damaging that habit can be. The new study, which surveyed more than 45,000 university students in Norway, found that late-night screen was associated with a significant reduction in sleep quality and duration. Moreover, spending just ...
The powerful health care interests who put Proposition 35 on the ballot last November had a simple pitch for the complex initiative: a tax no voter paid would provide a long-awaited pay bump to doctors and hospitals who serve the state’s lowest-income residents.
A shorter open enrollment period, less help choosing a plan, higher health insurance premiums for many people — those are just a few changes now brewing that could affect your health insurance for 2026 if you have coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
On March 19, 2025, the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) issued an All Plan Letter (APL 25-005) directing its regulated health plans to provide specific flexibilities to providers who were displaced by the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and Ventura counties earlier this year.