The chief executives of two of the nation’s largest health insurance companies told skeptical senators on Tuesday that consumers would benefit if the federal government approved their plans to acquire two other big insurers. But Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy group, expressed doubts about the deals, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, objected to ...

Six years after eliminating health coverage for adult immigrants living in the U.S. illegally during the Great Recession, Contra Costa County has cobbled together enough money to begin insuring them again, although the program could be short-lived. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to launch a $1 million pilot program aimed at providing primary ...

The nation’s biggest nonprofit health insurer spawned by the Affordable Care Act has been ordered to shut down as it reels toward insolvency, disrupting coverage for more than 200,000 New York state residents and becoming the fourth such co-op to collapse in recent months. The action Friday to force Health Republic Insurance of New York ...

Not-for-profit hospitals increasingly are entering the health insurance market in an effort to boost revenue during a period of slow growth,according to a report released last week by Moody’s Investors Service, Modern Healthcare reports. According to the report, the hospitals are making such moves even as the startup costs and short-term losses have put a ...

As a third open-enrollment season nears under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration plans to focus on 10.5 million uninsured Americans, trying to persuade them to sign up for coverage that they have ignored or rejected in the past. According to estimates released Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, that is ...

Efforts are underway to jump-start negotiations to come up with an equitable tax on health plans that will fill a $1.1 billion gap in the Medi-Cal budget. Legislative leaders announced conference committee appointments Wednesday, after lawmakers failed to come up with a fix before the regular legislative session ended Sept. 11. That wasn’t a formal ...