In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began enforcing the strongest hospital price transparency rules in the program’s history. The Calendar Year 2026 Outpatient Prospective Payment System final rule eliminates the “estimated allowed amount” placeholder that hospitals used to game disclosure, requires three new data elements based on 12 to 15 months of actual claims ...

When Gavin Newsom ran for California governor in 2018, his support for a state-run single-payer healthcare system was considered a risky move and earned him hefty labor endorsements. Today, leading Democrats in the wide-open race to succeed Newsom have embraced single-payer as a political necessity, an answer to voters fed up with rising premiums and other spiraling healthcare ...

State Obamacare marketplaces are starting to feel tremors from the GOP-controlled Congress’s ending of enhanced subsidies, as millions of Americans are dropping coverage. Experts and state officials say the impact varies from state to state, but enrollment decline is expected to grow this year and beyond, as policies from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and potential Trump ...

A new proposed rule from the Trump administration aims to make it easier for employers to offer coverage of fertility treatments, as part of larger efforts to expand access to fertility services including in-vitro fertilization. The new rule released Sunday from the Department of Labor would create a new exempted insurance benefit — in the same category as dental and vision benefit coverage— for treating infertility. Exempted benefits don’t have ...

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that California is expanding behavioral health treatment capacity statewide through a series of new and ongoing projects aimed at increasing mental health and substance use disorder services.

More access to affordable weight-loss medications is coming this summer for adults on Medicare. Starting in July, certain Medicare enrollees can pay $50 a month for specific prescription GLP–1 medications, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Medicare announced the pilot program for the popular weight loss medications on Wednesday. The Medicare GLP-1 Bridge program will run ...