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Health-insurance premiums are likely to jump right before the November elections, a result of Congress’s omission of federal money to shore up insurance exchanges from its new spending package. Lawmakers from both parties had pushed to include the funding in the $1.3 trillion spending law signed Friday, but they couldn’t agree on details. A battle has…

Support for single-payer health care has reached an all-time high, according to Gallup. Seven in 10 Democratic voters — and one in three Republicans — favor a government takeover of the health sector. They should be careful what they wish for. Single-payer systems have failed everywhere they’ve been implemented, from the United Kingdom to Canada. Americans who fall for single-payer’s…

ObamaCare turns eight years old today. Some opponents had hoped to mark the occasion by giving supporters the birthday gift they’ve always wanted: a GOP-sponsored bailout of ObamaCare-participating private insurance companies. Fortunately, a dispute over subsidies for abortion providers killed what could have been the first of many GOP ObamaCare bailouts. ObamaCare premiums have been skyrocketing. All…

On March 5, the Trump administration’s top health official told a conference of hospital executives to hurry up. Washington has spent more than a decade slowly nudging the medical industry away from treating health care as a volume commodity business, where more care is better, and toward incentives that reward improving patients’ health. In all that time,…

Democrats revolted against this week’s spending package because the deal includes the 1970s Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from subsidizing abortion. The left claims this is some new GOP initiative. But Hyde protections have long applied to: Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Indian Health Service, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program,…

When Republicans failed to repeal ObamaCare last year, it recalled the old line about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. That loss, however, should not be allowed to overshadow an important Republican success on health care. Millions of Medicare beneficiaries now get their coverage through private plans under Medicare Advantage—a quiet step forward that…

Of the $88 billion HHS appropriation announced Wednesday night, not a penny is going toward Obamacare. Congress is however extending oversight requirements on HHS regarding its administration of the health exchanges. Congressional leaders released the long-awaited $1.3 trillion, two-year spending omnibus after days of wrangling behind closed doors over contentious policies that included an embattled…

Big news on the health-care policy front: Democrats appear to be converging on an actual agenda if they win in 2020. Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced new legislation on Wednesday that policy guru Charles Gaba calls “ACA 2.0.” The Huffington Post’s Daniel Marans has details here. This is, as Gaba describes it, more than just patching up…

The Trump administration this month announced its own effort to update the Electronic Health Record systems, which disrupt the doctor-patient relationship. The government could do even more good by deregulating EHRs, establishing a free market for user-friendly products. Perhaps Amazon, through its partnership with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway , could eventually do for medicine what it’s done for…

Lawmakers hustled Monday to resolve policy disputes holding up an agreement on a sweeping spending bill needed to keep the government funded beyond Friday, but negotiations stretched into early Tuesday morning. Disagreements over health-care policy, immigration and funding for a New York rail tunnel project persisted as Democrats, Republicans and the White House negotiated the measure that would keep…