Health Care

GOP Efforts to Undermine Obamacare Will Raise Premiums by $1,000: Report

By Michael Rainey

Recent changes to the health insurance system will increase premiums on the federal marketplace substantially in 2019, according to a new analysis from the liberal Center for American Progress. As...
Medicaid Expansion in All States Would Lower Uninsured Rate by a Quarter: New Report

By Yuval Rosenberg

If the 19 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act did so next year, the uninsured rate in the United States would drop by roughly a quarter and federal spending on health...
Congress Has a Lot to Do Before Summer Break

By Michael Rainey

With the tax cuts passed and the White House increasingly focused on foreign policy, Republicans in Congress have set many of their top agenda items – from Obamacare repeal to immigration reform – on...
Why Trump's Plan Isn't a Cure for High Drug Prices

By Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump on Friday delivered a long-awaited speech outlining his administration’s blueprint for lowering prescription drug prices. Calling his plan “the most sweeping action in history to...
Consumers Brace For Premium Hikes While Lawmakers Grasp At Remedies

By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News

As some insurers angle for hefty premium hikes and concerns grow that more Americans will wind up uninsured, the federal health law is likely — once again — to play big in both parties’ strategies...

What’s the Democrats’ Midterm Campaign Message?

By Yuval Rosenberg

House Democratic leaders are looking to hone their messaging for the midterm elections, The Hill reports — but it’s not an easy task. “As an early indication of the challenge they face, even party...
The First $1 Million Drug?

By Meg Tirrell, CNBC

In the paradoxical world of drug pricing, the first U.S. price tag exceeding $1 million for a medicine is being contemplated as the nation's agita over the cost of prescription drugs climbs ever...
Trump Administration Rejects Kansas Plan for Medicaid Lifetime Limits

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Trump administration said Monday that it will not approve Kansas’ request to impose a new lifetime limit on Medicaid benefits. “We seek to create a pathway out of poverty, but we also understand...
The Obamacare Mandate That Could Produce $12 Billion in Fines in 2018

By Michael Rainey

Republicans effectively eliminated the individual Obamacare mandate in the tax package signed late last year. Although the new regulation reducing the mandate penalty to zero doesn’t take effect...
‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Is in Prison, But the Drug Price He Jacked Up Is Still High

By Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News

It was 2015 when Martin Shkreli, then CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and the notorious “pharma bro,” jacked up the cost of the lifesaving drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent. Overnight, its price tag...

How Walmart Could Fix the US Health Care System

By Christina Farr and Lauren Hirsch, CNBC

Walmart, the nation's biggest employer, is trying to redesign how U.S. health care works. It's one of the few companies that has the power to succeed. The retailer has been having early-stage talks...
California Takes On Health Giant Over High Costs

By Chad Terhune and Ana B. Ibarra, Kaiser Health News

California’s attorney general sued Sutter Health, accusing the hospital giant of illegally quashing competition and for years overcharging consumers and employers. The lawsuit marked a bold move by...
Obamacare Plans Could See Double-Digit Rate Hikes

By Michael Rainey

Congress failed to include an Obamacare stabilization package in the omnibus spending bill, and you can expect to see big price hikes for health care plans sold on the Obamacare exchanges in 2019,...
Elizabeth Warren Has New Plan to Improve Health Care – and It Isn’t Medicare for All

By Yuval Rosenberg

A recent poll found that likely voters want the Democratic Party to prioritize health care if it controls Congress and the White House in 2021. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is on it. Warren on...
White House Says Obamacare Insurers Are Raking In Healthy Profits

By Yuval Rosenberg

Health insurers are now making healthy profits in the Affordable Care Act markets, the White House Council of Economic Advisers says in a new report . “Despite significant initial financial losses in...