One perverse effect of the Affordable Care Act is that corporate America escaped some of the onerous mandates that hurt small enterprises. The Trump Administration is now trying to mitigate that inequity with a rule on association health plans, or AHPs, and perhaps the result will be a durable and popular alternative to ObamaCare coverage.…
DetailsForget the Affordable Care Act: The future of our health care system will be shaped by a much bigger and broader fight — one that will likely culminate with a 2020 choice between private markets and an authentic government-run program in the form of a Bernie Sanders-style Medicare for All. The bottom line: The cost of…
DetailsInsurers on the District of Columbia’s Obamacare insurance exchange want to raise rates by nearly 15 percent in 2019, while Minnesota’s insurers propose to reduce rates by up to about 12 percent. Insurers in Minnesota can take advantage of a reinsurance program in which the state helps subsidize the biggest insurance claims on Obamacare’s insurance…
DetailsCanada’s single-payer healthcare system forced over 1 million patients to wait for necessary medical treatments last year. That’s an all-time record. Those long wait times were more than just a nuisance; they cost patients $1.9 billion in lost wages, according to a new report by the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think-tank. Lengthy treatment delays are the norm in…
DetailsThe Affordable Care Act should be repealed in August and replaced with a new system that lifts national consumer protections and gives control of health care to the states, according to a proposal by a conservative group set to be released Tuesday. The proposal risks irking centrist Republicans who want to focus on other subjects. Republican leaders…
DetailsIn the fight for free-market principles in the health insurance market, there is one policy in particular that all conservatives can agree on: the expansion of health savings accounts (HSAs). These accounts allow consumers to save their own money tax-free to be used for medical expenses, putting individuals in charge of their own health care dollars. .…
DetailsSandy Dowland has been to the emergency room 10 times in the past year and was hospitalized during four of those visits. She has had a toe amputated and suffers from uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, major depression, obesity and back pain. But her health is not high on the 41-year-old woman’s priority list. “I…
DetailsThe federal government doesn’t have to pay insurers billions of dollars under an Affordable Care Act program aimed at enticing them into the markets by helping cover their financial risks, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday. In a case brought by Moda Health Plan Inc., the ruling is a blow to insurers hoping to recoup…
DetailsGrowth in state spending on the Medicaid program is expected to fall significantly in the short term, according to a new report by state budget officers. The findings, published Thursday in a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers, or NASBO, show that state Medicaid spending is expected to carry a median growth rate of…
DetailsDemocrats are seizing on the Trump administration’s push in court to overturn ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, hoping to leverage the issue ahead of November’s midterm elections as some Republicans rush to distance themselves from the move. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to join a legal battle arguing that one of the…
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