Denise Johnson works two jobs, but neither of them offers health insurance to part-timers like her. She signed up for a marketplace plan this year, but for routine medical care, Johnson still goes to the free clinic near her Charlottesville, Virginia, home.
In states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, low-income adults were more likely to see a doctor, stay overnight in a hospital and receive their first diagnoses of diabetes and high cholesterol, according to a study published Monday.
UnitedHealth Group Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer, said it will drop out of all but a “handful” of state exchanges where it sells individual Obamacare plans, acting on concerns it raised last year that it couldn’t turn a profit from the government program that has brought coverage to millions of people.
An influential federal advisory panel is calling for Congress to force private insurers to rein in rapid increases in prescription drug costs — by cutting some Medicare payments to insurance companies while shielding older Americans from higher out-of-pocket expenses.
Doctors who are on probation after being disciplined by state regulators would have to share that information with patients before providing care under a bill making its way through the state Senate.
The first full year of the Affordable Care Act brought historic increases in coverage for low-wage workers and others who have long been left out of the health care system, a New York Times analysis has found. Immigrants of all backgrounds — including more than a million legal residents who are not citizens — had the sharpest rise in coverage rates.