Eliminating Federal Marketplace Subsidies Will Increase Costs Up to 47%
January 10th 2015Studies from RAND and the Urban Institute estimate that eliminating subsidies for the federally facilitated Marketplaces would increase premiums between 35% and 47% and cause at least 8.2 million people to drop coverage.
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Anthem Selects Gilead as Primary Supplier of Hepatitis C Drugs
January 10th 2015Health insurer Anthem Inc has reached a deal under which Gilead Sciences Inc's hepatitis C drug Harvoni will be the primary treatment for patients infected with the most common strain of the liver-destroying virus.
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Medical Clinics Take Over Malls' Empty Spaces
January 10th 2015As retailers struggle to keep up with changing shopping trends, mall operators across the US are looking to fill spaces left empty by the likes of Sears and RadioShack. There is one promising new group of tenants: walk-in medical clinics.
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For-Profit Hospitals Poised for Stronger 2015 Than Not-For-Profits
January 10th 2015Cost cutting and new initiatives aimed at bringing in more patients will lead to another strong year in 2015 for for-profit hospitals. Meanwhile, their not-for-profit counterparts have been given negative outlooks by credit-rating agencies.
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Nanotechnology, Hailed in Biomedicine, Could Have Cardiac Effects, Study Finds
January 9th 2015While nanotechnology has led to countless advancements, a group of Israeli researchers are now raising a flag of caution about its effects on our health. They say exposure to tiny silica-based particles can play a big role in increasing heart attack and stroke risks.
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Reports Look at How Cost-Sharing Among the Insured Fuels Rise in Medical Debt
January 9th 2015The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Kaiser Family Foundation have both examined how rising cost-sharing and the complexity of medical billing put patients at a disadvantage when they are most vulnerable. Patients tell the CFPB that bill collectors are calling even when they can't get complete information about the medical bill in question.
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Controlling Cancer Metastases To Prevent Disease Progression
January 9th 2015Research at Heildelberg University is targeting the production of tumor-promoting growth factors in endothelial cells to prevent metastasis. Pre-clinical results using this strategy in a mouse model reduced lung and bone metastases in treated mice and also improved survival over the control chemotherapy-treated animals.
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The Potential Fallout if SCOTUS Invalidates ACA Subsidies for Federal Exchange
January 8th 2015If the Supreme Court invalidates Affordable Care Act subsidies for consumers on the federal exchange, states without their own Marketplaces will be unlikely to stave off "immediate destabilization" of their insurance market, according to experts.
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Leading Cancer Research Groups Call for US Regulation of E-Cigarettes
January 8th 2015ASCO and AACR called on the FDA to regulate e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems and for more research to occur to find out how long-term use affects health. Leaders of these groups said that e-cigarettes could cause nicotine addiction among teens, and CDC data show rising use of the products among middle- and high-schoolers.
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The GOP Could Unintentionally Drive Up Obamacare Enrollment
January 7th 2015The Republican Party's strategy to attack the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate by redefining a full-time employee as someone who works 40 hours a week instead of 30 hours could increase dependence on government-provided health insurance.
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A paper published in Science Magazine this month, co-authored by a mathematician and a biologist, suggests that heredity and environmental factors account for only one-third of the risk for developing cancer. A majority of risk is associated with random mutations, a result of mistakes during normal cellular replication.
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Larger Share of People Had High Medical Cost Burdens Prior to ACA
January 6th 2015The percentage of people with high medical costs increased from 2007-2009 to 2011, but the Affordable Care Act's coverage provisions should substantially reduce cost burdens for many people, according to a Commonwealth Fund study.
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Cancer Patients Not Too Distressed by Advanced Directives
January 6th 2015A study conducted at the humanities and medicine departments at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, found that there's never an ideal time to talk to cancer patients about end-of-life decisions, and most patients are not too disturbed by these discussions.
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Harvard Ideas on Healthcare Hit Home, Hard
January 6th 2015For years, Harvard's experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.
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Flu Virus Creates Havoc in the US
January 6th 2015With evidence that the current flu vaccine may not be effective on the predominant influenza A strain of the virus, hospital admission rates are the primary determinants of the severity of the epidemic that has claimed 6 young lives in the last week of December alone.
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