The billion-dollar amount cited by former Sen. Al Franken, while an estimate, is likely very close to what insurers will owe this year under a provision of the Affordable Care Act that compels rebates when insurers spend too little on actual medical care.
UnitedHealth Group is the largest health insurer in the United States. And it keeps growing. This has led some health care experts to call for antitrust regulation of this “behemoth” company.
UnitedHealth Group is the largest health insurer in the United States. And it keeps growing. This has led some health care experts to call for antitrust regulation of this “behemoth” company.
A bipartisan deal to raise the government’s borrowing limit dashed Republican hopes for new Medicaid work requirements and other health spending cuts. Democrats secured the compromise by making relatively modest concessions, including ordering the return of unspent covid funds and limiting other health spending.
When KFF Health News’ “What the Health?” podcast launched in 2017, Republicans in Washington were engaged in an (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. The next six years would see a pandemic, increasingly unaffordable care, and a health care workforce experiencing unprecedented burnout. In the podcast’s 300th episode, host and chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner explores the past and possible future of the U.S. health care system with three prominent “big thinkers” in health policy: Ezekiel Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania, Jeff Goldsmith of Health Futures, and Farzad Mostashari of Aledade.
Montana, Alaska, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming are among the latest states moving to provide health coverage for up to a year after pregnancy through the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people.
In what’s known as the Medicaid “unwinding,” states are combing through rolls to decide who stays and who goes. But the overwhelming majority of people who have lost coverage so far were dropped because of technicalities, not because officials determined they are no longer eligible.
The federal government’s arcane process for medical coding is influencing which reconstructive surgery options are available, creating anxiety for breast cancer patients.
KFF Health News has learned that a coalition of doctors, hospitals, insurers, and community clinics want to lock in a tax on health insurance companies to draw in extra Medicaid funding. It also wants to make the tax permanent.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting pressure from his political allies to begin spending money on health care that the state raised by fining Californians who go without health insuance. But Newsom says the state can’t afford to.
