Health Care

Medicaid Work Rules Approved for South Carolina

By Michael Rainey

The Trump administration on Thursday approved South Carolina’s request to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...
Watchdog Questions $6.7 Billion in Medicare Payments

By Michael Rainey

Health insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program have received billions in extra payments after making adjustments to their patient charts – changes that the Department of Health and...
House Passes Pelosi’s Sweeping Drug Bill

By The Fiscal Times Staff

A bill backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would empower the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices passed the House Thursday in a 230-192 vote, largely along party lines. As we told you...
Shocking Health Care Statistic of the Day

By Michael Rainey

Consumer health insurance costs are up more than 20% year over year, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index data released Wednesday. Medical care costs overall have risen 4.2% from...
Ready to Rumble: How Pelosi’s Drug Bill Sets Up Dems for 2020

By Michael Rainey

After making a deal with liberal Democrats Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have cleared the way for a vote this week on a sweeping bill that would empower Medicare to negotiate drug...

Congress Really Wants to Get Something Done on Drug Prices. It May Fail Anyway

By Yuval Rosenberg

Lawmakers are eager to show they can deliver on the issues the American public cares most about, so even as House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday,...
Surprise Deal to Protect Patients From Surprise Medical Bills

By Michael Rainey

After struggling for months to reach consensus, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers announced Sunday evening they had come to an agreement on legislation that would protect patients from...
Obamacare Back at the Supreme Court — With Billions for Insurers on the Line

By Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News

More than $12 billion is at stake for the nation’s health insurers Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears another Affordable Care Act case. For the federal government, the potential damages could be...
The Rising Tide of Health Care Costs

By The Fiscal Times Staff

We told you yesterday about new data from the Medicare actuaries showing health care spending in the U.S. hitting a record high last year, totaling $3.65 trillion overall, or more than $11,000 per...
The Healthiest — and Unhealthiest — US States

By Yuval Rosenberg

Vermont is the healthiest state in the U.S., according to the latest annual ranking by the United Health Foundation. Vermont climbed three spots, thanks in part to “a low incidence of chlamydia, a...

Medicaid Work Requirements in Question

By Michael Rainey

A justice department lawyer defending the Trump administration’s approval of work requirements for Medicaid recipients in Kentucky and Arkansas told a panel of federal appeals court judges Friday...
US Surgeons General Say Dementia Is Top Public Health Crisis

By Yuval Rosenberg

Four former surgeons general who served under presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are warning that dementia is the nation’s top public health crisis. In a guest commentary...
The Budget Outlook Isn’t Good — but It Has ‘Improved Substantially Since 2010’: Report

By Yuval Rosenberg

The national debt is now approaching $23 trillion, up nearly $9 trillion from the end of 2010, and the debt held by the public now stands at nearly $17 trillion, up about $7.5 trillion from since the...
States Spending Millions to Administer Medicaid Work Requirements

By Michael Rainey

States deploying work requirements in their Medicaid programs are spending millions of dollars on administrative costs to implement the new rules, according to a new study by the Government...
Trump Wants States to Experiment With Medicaid — Up to a Point

By Michael Ollove, Stateline

After a series of zigzags, Utah is about to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. At least 10 red states have done the same, but Utah’s experience may be a bellwether showing how far the...