When Gov. Mike Pence tries next month to negotiate a Medicaid expansion deal in a meeting with the Obama administration, it will be a clash of the conservative and liberal approaches to fighting poverty.
Obamacare has officially arrived, but both conservatives and liberals are calling it awful. That means the real debate over health reform is just beginning.
The pace of rule-making and decision-making was feverish in the year leading up to the Jan. 1, 2014, implementation of Obamacare.
The deadline to enroll in plans that begin Jan. 1 now is midnight Tuesday for most of the U.S. On Monday, healthcare.gov fielded nearly 50,000 simultaneous visitors, triggering a queuing system.
Small business dumping, the uncertainty of Obamacare's exchanges, and the certainty of Obamacare's taxes will take a bite out of WellPoint's earnings next year. But company executives remain bullish on Obamacare's long-term impact.
In the Christmas spirit of hope, I’m offering a reading list of several optimistic reports about health care reform—even though many of my recent posts, and the mood of the country in general, have been decidedly downbeat.
There is good evidence that new technology deployed via new methods of medicine across the entire health care system can reduce the need for physicians. But there are too many barriers for such changes to occur in time to cut off the surge in demand brought on by Obamacare.
A new Medicaid expansion deal with the Republican governor of Iowa OK’d a cost-sharing requirement similar to what Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wants. But the Obama administration says it won’t extend that deal as low as Pence would like to go.
Based on some very rough assumptions, I calculate that Hoosiers could see premiums 14 percent to 28 percent higher in 2015, due in part to low enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges in 2014.
In response to insurers’ “zero-premium” strategy, hospitals figure out their own way to game the tax subsidies available in the new Obamacare exchanges: pay premiums for their patients.
An annual survey by the benefits consulting firm Mercer found that, among 75 Hoosier employers, 34 percent of workers are already enrolled in consumer-directed health plans. And that number is only going to go up due to new Obamacare rules.
In spite of President Obama’s promises that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, the president’s health reform law is spurring health insurers to make him a liar on that point too.
It’s no secret the growth of the U.S. economy slowed in the 2000s after the go-go decade preceding it. But the U.S. health care system—hospitals, doctors, drug companies, device makers and health insurers—apparently didn’t get that memo.
Obamacare put an end to health insurers’ worst methods for avoiding risk. But that doesn’t mean insurers have ended their risk-shifting ways. Not at all.
Hoosiers’ poor health, combined with an aggressive health care system and an uncompetitive health insurance sector, means Hoosiers, in spite of the fact that they earn just 86 cents for every dollar earned by the average American, are spending nearly $1.13 on health care for every dollar spent by Americans.
Why are Indiana’s hospitals cutting jobs. Because they’re spooked about cuts to Medicare payments. They should be.
Obamacare’s exchanges are requiring working Americans to grasp minute details of their employers’ health plans in order to avoid a nasty surprise from the IRS.
Only four health insurers are offering policies in the Obamacare exchange in Indiana, whereas 17 have withdrawn from the market since 2010.
Rather than railing incessantly against Obamacare, Republicans would do themselves and the country a favor if they finally agreed on a common alternative for fixing the health care system.
More than half of the $2.5 trillion consumers spend annually on health care in the United States flows to hospitals and doctors, with drug companies and health insurers trailing well behind.
