Industry Updates
This broad category includes articles concerning health insurance costs, carrier and health plan news, changing benefits technology, and surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others on employee benefits.
Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, has devised what could be a powerful new way to hold hospitals accountable for the quality of their care.
A sweeping California proposal to curb healthcare costs by imposing price controls sputtered Friday, but backers vowed to continue the effort next year.
Presentations are set for today and Tuesday for vendors that are vying to put together the state’s platform for buying health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Estimates released Thursday by Covered California, the state insurance marketplace, project that premiums in the individual market will rise 11 percent next year, while enrollment in the exchange — which is larger than any other state’s — will drop 12 percent.
Preserving and improving access to health care should be a priority for lawmakers. But a proposal now under consideration in the state Assembly would do the opposite dismantling our state’s health care system as we know it, resulting in massive cuts to patient care services and the potential loss of 175,000 jobs across the state.
The cost of health insurance plans on the ObamaCare exchanges could jump in the coming weeks, some by double digits, inflaming the issue ahead of the midterm elections.
The expansion of the federal low-income health program to cover more people hasn’t benefited Latinos as much as other racial and ethnic groups, according to a recent report by UCLA researchers.
Gov. Jerry Brown never had to decide whether to support single-payer health care because a bill never reached his desk. But just because the Legislature isn’t considering it this year doesn’t mean the idea has died — and even without it, California’s next governor will have plenty of health policy problems to worry about.
Gov. Jerry Brown opted not to include major long-term investments in public health insurance programs in his budget revision on Friday, citing a preference for one-time spending measures.
A new research letter reports that doctors who received free meals and other kinds of payments from pharmaceutical companies tended to prescribe more opioid painkillers to their patients over the course of a year. Meanwhile, doctors who didn't get such freebies cut back on their opioid prescriptions.