2017 had been shaping up as a year focused on fixing the Affordable Care Act's insurance markets, slowing prescription drug price hikes, expanding Medicaid, improving mental health care and spreading value-based payment and delivery.

People who want to sign up for a policy on healthcare.gov after the annual open enrollment period ends Jan. 31 may have to produce a paper trail proving that they qualify for a “special enrollment period” before their coverage can begin, according to details of a pilot program described last week by federal officials.

Taxpayers will fork over nearly $10 billion more next year to cover double-digit premium hikes for subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's law, according to a study being released Thursday.

The first phase of the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit to halt Anthem Inc.’s planned takeover of rival insurer Cigna Corp. is in the hands of a federal judge after the government wrapped up its arguments Tuesday that the deal would harm competition in the national insurance market.

Hundreds of insurers selling health plans in Affordable Care Act marketplaces are being paid less than 2 percent of nearly $6 billion the government owes them for covering customers last year with unexpectedly high medical expenses.

As drug prices have spiraled upward in the past decade, tens of millions of generally law-abiding Americans have committed an illegal act in response: They have bought prescriptions outside the U.S. and imported them.