A law that allows rural hospitals to bill Medicare for rehabilitation services for seniors at higher rates than nursing homes and other facilities has led to billions of dollars in extra government spending, federal investigators say.

The federal government lost ground last year in reducing improper payments from programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and tax credits for the working poor, experiencing a nearly 18 percent increase in the costs.

The percentage of Latinos and African Americans who signed up for subsidized health coverage through California's insurance exchange increased modestly during the second annual open enrollment period, officials announced Thursday.

Starting March 27, legally married same-sex couples will be able to take unpaid time off to care for a spouse or sick family members even if they live in a state that doesn’t recognize their marriage.

Technology entrepreneur Jonathan Bush says he was recently watching a patient move from a hospital to a nursing home. The patient’s information was in an electronic medical record, or EMR. And getting that record from the hospital to the nursing home, Bush says, wasn’t exactly drag and drop.

Nearly 500,000 new consumers signed up for insurance and picked a health plan through Covered California through Feb. 22, executive director Peter Lee announced at the exchange board meeting Thursday.