Recent Articles

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to “wind down” support for the federal exchanges by the time open enrollment hits in 2019 and shift funding to states. For that strategy to work, the agency is relying on Congress to do something it failed to do several times last year: Pass an ACA repeal. CMS…

Since the managed care debacle of the 1990s, billions of dollars have been spent in time and resources to improve and measure the quality of patient care. However, measuring the quality of care in the effort to improve it in a cost-efficient manner is showing evidence of being counter-productive, particularly for small physician practices and…

Congress in 2017 failed to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. But the health law has been changed in many other ways over the past year and a half. Some changes were made by Congress, some by President Donald Trump and his administration and some by state officials. Here is a timeline of the…

Maryland lawmakers on Wednesday finalized a bipartisan measure to collect $380 million in taxes from health insurers next year to help curtail surging premiums for 150,000 Marylanders and prevent the state’s Obamacare marketplace from a potential collapse. The legislation was a quiet, one-year compromise between the Democratic-controlled General Assembly and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who…

After years of being a central political question, health care is on the back burner. Both parties contain experts and activists who want to make major changes to health policy. But for now, both parties’ politicians are wary. Democrats are, as usual, more interested in the subject than Republicans, but they are somewhat divided about…

It’s the pragmatists versus the idealists in California’s latest quest for universal health care. Increasing numbers of lawmakers and advocates are pushing for policy goals that realistically can be accomplished this year. But there’s an unrelenting camp clinging to single-payer-or-bust. The Golden State, which has been pushing back against the Trump administration on multiple fronts,…

California is indeed the Golden State where Medicaid is concerned. The HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) has found that, by exploiting Obamacare’s expansion of the program, California has enrolled hundreds of thousands of ineligible adults in Medicaid. Consequently, the state has bilked the federal government out of more than $1 billion in funding to…

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that 11.8 million people had signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces for 2018 — roughly 400,000 fewer than last year. Virtually the entire decrease came in the 39 states that use the marketplace run by the federal government, HealthCare.gov. In the 11 states that…

Ohio officials asked the Trump Administration on Friday to formally waive the Affordable Care Act individual mandate that requires residents to have health insurance, making it the first state to make such a waiver request. Ohio’s Legislature called for the 1332 waiver last summer, and Congress zeroed out the financial penalty for not having coverage in its…

A new law in Iowa could provide the path forward for Republican-led states that are looking for ways around ObamaCare’s rules and regulations. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) on Monday signed a law that will allow the Iowa Farm Bureau to collaborate with Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield on self-funded “health benefit plans.” The plans…