Recent Articles

Obamacare’s fourth open enrollment period will begin November 1. For the Internal Revenue Service, it will be open season on uninsured taxpayers. In an effort to maximize enrollment, the IRS is mining the personal tax information of people who have chosen not to buy Obamacare policies.

Several RAND Corporation health economists have offered very rough estimates of the coverage and cost effects of the hazy health policy proposals by the two major presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In choosing to fill Trump’s policy vacuum with their own void of limited health policy modeling, the RAND researchers conclude that Trump’s proposals…

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee sent shock waves Monday across Tennessee with the company’s decision to exit the Obamacare exchange in Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville, a move that highlights persistent volatility in the young health insurance marketplace. Three years into the Affordable Care Act exchange, the state’s largest insurer is grappling with hefty losses and ongoing uncertainty on the marketplace.…

In yet another sign of instability in Obamacare’s health-insurance Exchanges, BlueCross BlueShield of Nebraska has announced it will leave that state’s Exchange entirely, while BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee will exit the Exchange in all three of that state’s major metropolitan areas. The moves will leave 112,000 Tennesseans and tens of thousands of Nebraskans scrambling to find new…

Insurers have announced that they are sharply raising prices or pulling out of the Obamacare markets entirely. Many consumers will have fewer choices of insurance plans, and many insurance plans will include fewer doctors and hospitals. Many of the most important problems can be understood if you think of an Obamacare marketplace as a particular kind of restaurant: an all-you-can-eat…

ObamaCare is plainly unaffordable for many young Americans. We’re at the start of our careers—and the bottom of the income ladder—so paying so much for something we likely won’t use makes little sense. The IRS penalty of $695 or 2.5% of our income is often cheap by comparison. We may be young, but we can…

Legislative auditors said Wednesday they can’t confirm that the Medicaid application backlog numbers state officials have reported are correct. Applications have been backlogged for about a year following the rocky rollout of a new computer system, an administrative decision that funneled all applications through a single state agency and a larger-than-expected influx of applications during…

A liberal attempt to revive the public option is opening old wounds between the Democratic Party’s liberal and moderate wings. Thirty-three mostly-liberal Democrats, including all the Senate leadership, have signed onto a nonbinding Senate resolution to add the public option to Obamacare. But missing from the list are vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine and a…

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska announced Friday that is pulling out of the ObamaCare marketplace in the state, becoming the latest insurer to cite financial losses when reducing participation in the healthcare law. The move is especially significant given that it is a Blue Cross plan, which form the backbone of the ObamaCare marketplaces.…

A majority of physicians look negatively at their profession and are increasingly burdened by new reimbursement models, according to a new survey. The Physicians Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that supports research on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on physician groups, surveyed 17,236 physicians across the U.S. (PDF) on a variety of issues related…