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Based on rate increases proposed to North Carolina’s Department of Insurance, state residents who have signed up for Obamacare could face a 19 percent to 25 percent jump in the cost of their health coverage for 2017, Republican Sen. Richard Burr says. Further, because major health insurers have suffered losses and are exiting the program,…

President Obama would veto a House bill that would provide an exemption from the individual mandate if someone’s insurance coverage ended mid-year because of a co-op closure, the White House said Tuesday. The House is debating H.R. 954, the CO-OP Consumer Protection Act, and is slated to vote on the measure later today. The bill responds to…

The House on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow people who enrolled in failed health insurance “co-ops” under the Affordable Care Act to skip this year’s penalty for not having coverage. The Republican-backed bill passed on a mostly party-line vote of 258-165, but 16 Democrats broke with their party to support the measure. “It’s…

The Obama administration will use targeted, digital messages and online networks such as Twitter in a sweeping campaign to get young adults to sign up for health insurance during the Affordable Care Act’s fall open enrollment, appealing to a group seen as critical to the law’s success. The administration, which announced the new push on…

Vermont did not properly allocate millions of dollars in federal grants when establishing its marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, a report released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said. Vermont’s Agency of Human Services did not always follow federal requirements for allocating costs to establishment grants to establish its…

Two issue briefs published today by The Commonwealth Fund and authored by several RAND Corporation economists (led by Christine Eibner) will be noted by casual readers for their presumably “scientific” conclusions that (1) a set of Clinton proposals will increase the number of insured Americans by over 9 million and decrease average spending by up…

The bitter, long-running fight over ObamaCare’s individual and employer mandates is all over but the shouting. The problems plaguing the ObamaCare exchanges as enrollment lags, premiums spike and insurers from Aetna to UnitedHealth head for the exits have reached a critical stage, even as the penalties are about to spike for far too many millions of people who…

Medicaid expansion will not cure hospitals’ financial woes, according to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office. To put it bluntly, hospitals made a horrible deal by endorsing Obamacare in 2009. They agreed to annual reductions in their Medicare payments forever in exchange for a one-time increase in the number of insured patients. But Medicaid’s…

While health care has not been central to the 2016 Presidential campaign, the election’s outcome will be a major determining factor in the country’s future health care policy. A number of issues have garnered media attention, including the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), rising prescription drug costs, and the opioid epidemic. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump…

About 27,000 Hoosiers will lose their Obamacare plans next year after Indiana University Health Plans announced it is withdrawing from the Indiana marketplace, citing big losses from the new enrollees. It had covered 15% of marketplace enrollees last year. Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, a Republican, said the announcement from IU Health Plans is evidence the…