Health Care

Top Issues for Midterm Voters: Health Care, the Economy, Guns

By The Fiscal Times Staff

No surprise: Health care is the top issue for voters heading into next month’s elections, though Republicans say immigration and the economy are more important to them, according to the latest Kaiser...
McConnell: Entitlement Cuts Probably Won’t Happen Under Trump

By Yuval Rosenberg

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) unleashed a storm of Democratic criticism earlier this week by telling Bloomberg News that rising deficits and debt are driven by Social Security,...
These 5 Companies Would Be Hit Hardest by Trump’s Drug Ad Proposal

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Trump administration’s proposal to require drugmakers to disclose their prices in television ads would hit five companies especially hard: Pfizer, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Amgen and Allergan, STAT...
Medicare For All? CMS Chief Warns Program Has Enough Problems Already

By Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News

The Trump administration’s top Medicare official Tuesday slammed the federal health program as riddled with problems that hinder care to beneficiaries, increase costs for taxpayers and escalate fraud...
Mitch McConnell on Rising Deficit: ‘It’s Not a Republican Problem'

By Yuval Rosenberg

The quotes: “It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem. It’s a bipartisan problem: unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the...

What Will Work Requirements for Medicaid and Food Stamps Really Accomplish?

By The Fiscal Times Staff

A new paper from the Brookings Institution raises more doubts about the usefulness of work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). More than a dozen states...
GOP Scrambles to Send a Pre-Election Message on Pre-Existing Conditions

By Yuval Rosenberg

From The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann : “Thirty-two of the 49 GOP incumbents in races deemed competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report have backed congressional measures on pre-existing...
Chart of the Day: The Surge in Medicare Advantage Enrollment

By Yuval Rosenberg

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage, the government-funded private health plans that serve as an alternative to traditional Medicare, has doubled since 2010, writes Phil Galewitz at Kaiser Health News...
Trump’s New Medicaid Chief Is a Medicaid Critic

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Trump administration has reportedly named Mary Mayhew , a former Maine health commissioner, as deputy administrator and director of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)...
Trump Administration Seeks to Force Drugmakers to Post Prices in Ads

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Trump administration is pushing ahead with its plan to require drugmakers to disclose their list prices for medications in consumer advertising, much as they warn about possible side effects. The...

Pharma CEO: It's a 'Moral Requirement' to Raise Prices

By Michael Rainey

Nostrum Laboratories, a small pharmaceutical firm based in Missouri, raised the price of the antibiotic nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 a bottle last month. Here is how the CEO, Nirmal Mulye,...
Charging Almost $200 for a Bottle of Pills Worth $6

By Yuval Rosenberg

Bloomberg’s Robert Langreth, David Ingold and Jackie Gu take a fascinatingly detailed look at the “secret drug pricing system” that generates millions of dollars for pharmacy benefit managers,...
The Remedy For Surprise Medical Bills May Lie In Stitching Up Federal Law

By Michelle Andrews and Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News

When Drew Calver had a heart attack last year, his health plan paid nearly $56,000 for the 44-year-old’s four-day emergency hospital stay at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, a hospital...
Trump Says He Made Social Security, Medicare Stronger. Fact-Checker Says False.

By The Fiscal Times Staff

President Trump said this week that "Democrats want to destroy Medicare. If you look at what they’re doing, they’re going to destroy Medicare. And we will save it. We will keep it going. We’re making...
Did Soaring Health Care Costs Consume Americans’ Pay Raises?

By Michael Rainey

A hard-hitting report released this week from analysts at the insurance firm Willis Towers Watson claims that the health care system is responsible in large part for the lack of income growth...