California lawmakers are staring down a $1.1 billion hole in next year’s health budget after failing to come up with a way to replace the state’s “managed care organization tax” on health insurance plans that serve Medi-Cal managed care recipients.

More than 560,000 people signed up for plans through the ObamaCare exchanges last week, the strongest total yet for this year’s open enrollment.

With time running out on open enrollment season, many seniors are facing sharply higher premiums for Medicare’s popular prescription drug program. The reason: rising drug costs have overtaken a long stretch of stable premiums. Beneficiaries have until Dec. 7 to see if there’s a lower-cost plan that will cover their medications in 2016. Consumer advocates ...

The CMS has proposed mandating minimum network standards for health plans sold on the federal insurance marketplace in 2017 as part of an effort to handle the broad shift toward narrow provider networks. The Affordable Care Act requires that all medical policies on the exchanges have enough in-network hospitals and doctors for members so that ...

A $160 billion megamerger announced Monday would turn U.S. pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer Inc. into an Irish drug company, using a controversial tactic that allows companies to dodge billions of dollars in corporate taxes by renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Pfizer’s deal with Botox-maker Allergan, which would create the world’s largest drugmaker, immediately sparked criticism from Democrats ...

Many primary care practitioners will be a little poorer next year because of the expiration of a health law program that has been paying them a 10 percent bonus for caring for Medicare patients. Some say the loss may trickle down to the patients, who could have a harder time finding a doctor or have to wait ...