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...

How Insurers Are Gaming the Medicare System

By Michael Rainey

Insurance companies that operate Medicare Advantage plans can collect bonus payments from the federal government worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but only for plans that receive top ratings. In...
Liberal Think Tank Warns Restoring Obamacare Insurer Payments Could Backfire

By Michael Rainey

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities warned Friday that restoring cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurance companies participating in the Obamacare markets could end up doing more...
Military’s New Digital Health System Is a Billion-Dollar Bust So Far

By Michael Rainey

Politico reports that a multi-billion-dollar effort by the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration to create a unified, electronic medical record system has failed to reach its objectives so far,...
Arkansas Gets the Green Light for More Conservative Medicaid Rule

By Michael Rainey

With the blessing of the Trump administration, Arkansas is taking Medicaid work requirements to a new level. The administration on Monday granted the state permission to create work requirements for...
The $82 Trillion Problem Washington Has Stopped Talking About

By Yuval Rosenberg

Now that “the anti-deficit hysteria of the Great Recession has given way to a backlash of complacency,” lawmakers and the public are ignoring “an $82 trillion avalanche of Social Security and...