Three years ago, 3.9 million Americans received a plain-looking envelope from the Internal Revenue Service. Inside was a letter stating that they had recently paid a fine for not carrying health insurance and suggesting possible ways to enroll in coverage.

If it pays off, this could be the biggest breakthrough of the year, vis-à-vis medical bills: movers and shakers in both the House and Senate have reached agreement on legislation to tackle surprise medical bills.

More than $12 billion is at stake for the nation’s health insurers Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears another Affordable Care Act case.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill that would let Medicare negotiate prices with drug companies would save the government $456 billion over ten years, according to an analysis released Tuesday.

Health care spending grew last year but shrunk as a portion of overall spending. A new analysis published in Health Affairs by Micah Hartman, a statistician in the CMS Office of the Actuary, finds that national health care spending increased by 4.6 percent in 2018 to $3.6 trillion, or 17.7 percent of the overall economy. That’s down from 17.9 percent the previous year.

State Sen. Jim Beall is angry. Four times now, he has introduced legislation to better enforce state and federal “parity” laws, which require equal treatment of mental and physical health problems. Four times, that legislation has failed. As he enters his final year in the Legislature, the San Jose Democrat plans what he calls a “full-frontal assault”. “I’m going to put even more effort into next year,” Beall said, “because I’m madder than hell about it.” California’s parity mandate was signed into law in 1999, and a federal parity law followed in 2008. But the state has struggled to ensure those laws work‚ which helps explain why parity feels like an empty promise to so many Californians. More than half...