Source: California Healthline California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, put executives of insurance giants Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. in the hot seat Tuesday over their proposal for a merger that could create the nation’s third largest insurer. Jones heard testimony from opponents and proponents of the plan, and he administered a dose of his own […]
Read moreSource: California Healthline The federal government paid bonuses to 231 hospitals with subpar quality because their patients tend to be less expensive for Medicare, new research shows. The bonuses are small, generally a fraction of a percent of their Medicare payments. Nonetheless, rewarding hospitals of mediocre quality was hardly the stated goal when the Affordable […]
Read moreSource: NBC News Why does a knee replacement cost $29,000 in Kansas but $40,000 in next-door Colorado? Health care prices are all over the map in the U.S., a new study finds. It digs deeply into the crazy pattern of health costs across the U.S. and shows there is very little consistency. The report from […]
Read moreSource: KQED Covered California’s Obamacare exchange has helped consumers get a better deal on health insurance in part because of its negotiating power — power that other Affordable Care Act marketplaces don’t have — according to a new analysis published Monday. California is one of the few states that created an “active purchaser” exchange, where […]
Read moreSource: The New York Times Seven of the 10 most profitable U.S. hospitals are nonprofits, according to new research, including one in Urbana, Illinois, where hospital tax exemptions are headed for a contentious court battle that soon could determine whether medical facilities are paying their fair share of taxes. The “Top 10” list accompanies a […]
Read moreSource: Politico The last thing Democrats want to contend with just a week before the 2016 presidential election is an outcry over double-digit insurance hikes as millions of Americans begin signing up for Obamacare. But that looks increasingly likely as health plans socked by Obamacare losses look to regain their financial footing by raising rates. […]
Read moreSource: The New York Times From the campaign trail to the halls of Congress, drug makers have spent much of the last year enduring withering criticism over the rising cost of drugs. It doesn’t seem to be working. In April alone, Johnson & Johnson raised its prices on several top-selling products, including the leukemia drug […]
Read moreSource: Los Angeles Times Ever since Obamacare took effect two years ago, many California legislators have been fighting to get health insurance for those it left out — the quarter of all immigrants in the country illegally who live within the state’s borders. Next month, California will make a sizable dent in that effort when […]
Read moreSource: NPR When the health insurance premiums got to the point that they were higher than her mortgage, Renee Powell started to become cynical. “There was something in me that just kind of switched,” said the mother of two from Bartlesville, Okla. “I was OK with paying $750, but when it became about $100 more […]
Read moreSource: The New York Times U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan called on Wednesday for an end to Obamacare’s financial protections for people with serious medical conditions, saying these consumers should be placed in state high-risk pools. In election-year remarks that could shed light on an expected Republican healthcare alternative, Ryan said existing federal […]
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