Health Care

Critics Slam Trump Administration's Short-Term Health Insurance Proposal

By Yuval Rosenberg

Monday marked the end of the comment period on a proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services to allow short-term health insurance plans to provide coverage for as long as 364 days, up...
Would a Democratic Win in the Midterms Lead to Lower Prescription Drug Prices?

By Yuval Rosenberg

We’re 200 days away from November’s midterms, and while we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves — 200 days, after all, could also be counted as about 20 Scaramuccis in Trumpworld — Goldman...
Medicaid’s $37 Billion 'Improper Payments' Problem

By Michael Rainey

Total outlays for Medicaid reached $596 billion in the 2017 fiscal year, up from $565 billion in 2016, and the program’s vast size and complexity makes it particularly vulnerable to issuing large...
Paul Ryan's Fiscal Legacy: Lots of Red Ink

By Yuval Rosenberg

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday that he won’t seek re-election this year and will retire at the end of his term in January, becoming the most prominent in a wave of Republican lawmakers...
Yellen, Democratic Economists Say Fixing Debt Crisis Isn’t All About Entitlements

By Yuval Rosenberg

Late last month, a quintet of big-name Hoover Institution economists warned in a Washington Post op-ed that a coming “string of perpetually rising trillion-dollar-plus deficits” could soon lead to a...

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...

Number of Uninsured Americans Rose by 3.2 Million in 2017

By Michael Rainey

The uninsured rate for U.S. adults hit a low of 10.9 percent at the end of 2016, but it’s been on the rise since then, Gallup reported Tuesday. By the end of 2017, the rate had risen to 12.2 percent...
Kentucky Gets the Go-Ahead on Medicaid Work Requirements

By Michael Rainey

Just a day after the Trump administration issued new rules allowing states to enforce work requirements for Medicaid recipients, Kentucky received permission to begin doing so Friday. The approval is...
Trump Opens the Door to Medicaid Work Requirements

By Michael Rainey

The Trump administration will allow states to create work requirements for some Medicaid recipients for the first time, in what The Wall Street Journal calls “one of the biggest changes in the...
Extending CHIP Would Actually Save Taxpayers Money: CBO

By Michael Rainey

The Congressional Budget Office produced a new cost estimate for extending the Children’s Health Insurance Program, finding that a 10-year extension would produce net savings of $6 billion. An...
CHIP Renewal Would Cost Less Than Expected

By Michael Rainey

The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that the cost of extending the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be $800 million over five years, far less than the $8.3 billion cited previously...