Health Care Delivery

Three provisions in the health law that proponents say are designed to help insurers manage the financial risk of taking all comers while keeping premiums affordable are under fire on Capitol Hill, with Republicans labeling them as giveaways to the health insurance industry.

Barack Obama used the State of the Union address as an opportunity to advise uninsured Americans about enrolling for exchange coverage before the March deadline-avoiding the more sensitive topics of problems with the Healthcare.gov website and cancelled insurance plans.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday night touted the results of his 2010 healthcare overhaul and urged every American who knows someone without health insurance to help them get covered by the end of March.

The Basic Health Plan (BHP) may have counterproductive results.

Republicans have offered a wide array of proposals to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act since it became law in 2010. But few have come with the pedigree of the plan just unveiled by a trio of senior Senate Republicans.

Significant disparities are developing in states' success at signing up individuals for coverage through the state and federal exchanges, according to a new analysis, and the gaps don't consistently reflect which states have embraced or opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Thirty-five percent of Hendry County's 33,000 residents under age 65 lack health insurance, according to the latest census figures, much higher than Florida's 25 percent average, which is the nation's second highest state rate.

Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration says the state would save money instead of spending it by implementing the new federal health care law.

It's been nearly 1 month since the federal and state health exchanges opened, and enrollment numbers are beginning to roll in.

One of the regulations of the Affordable Care Act is to provide access to free preventive care, but many Americans are discovering that there are coverage exceptions and additional fees that come with certain services.

Conference Coverage: Diabetes Innovation

Enrollment in the health law's marketplaces surged in December, and the administration's report on the numbers made headlines on Monday - but the national story isn't the whole story.

As policymakers consider ways to slow the growth in Medicare spending as part of broader efforts to reduce the federal debt or offset the cost of other spending priorities, some have proposed to increase beneficiary contributions through higher Medicare premiums.

People seeking urgent medical could face longer wait times and other challenges as demand increases under Obamacare, U.S. emergency doctors said in a report on Thursday that gives the nation's emergency infrastructure a near failing grade.

Patients at high risk - including those with cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease - will be covered under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) until March 31, thanks to a decision this week from the Department of Health and Human Services.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., Wednesday strongly rejected a major challenge to the healthcare reform law, ruling that the law allows the federal government to offer premium subsidies to people who buy insurance coverage through the federal insurance exchange and not just through state-run exchanges.

Health insurers are expressing measured optimism for enrollment in the coverage they're selling on the health insurance exchanges after quietly grumbling for weeks that the fumbled rollout was undermining their business plans.

Who's purchasing health plans through the insurance exchanges? According to the federal government, more than 2.1 million people have enrolled into private insurance coverage through December, and an additional 1.6 million became eligible for financial assistance under Medicaid.

For the first time in decades, HHS may start telling the public exactly how much money individual doctors earn treating Medicare patients.

The promise of the Affordable Care Act is right there in its title: Affordable. Yet, anti-poverty agencies across the country fear that even with the federal financial assistance available under the law, health insurance will remain unaffordable for significant numbers of low-income Americans.

Most patients remain thoroughly befuddled about the law. Half of uninsured adults who could get policies now through the health insurance marketplaces have never tried to buy insurance on their own, and, in California, nearly one out of two poor adults don't know they would qualify for Medicaid.

About 96 percent of Covered California customers are picking among the "big four" plans, according to a "Road to Reform" analysis of October and November enrollment figures. (Based on off-the-record interviews with several health plan officials, a similar trend continued through December).

The US Chamber of Commerce says it aims to include the Affordable Care Act in its list of 2014 objectives. Nearly 2 years ago, the chamber voiced its intent to repeal the health reform bill after it was enacted in 2010.

Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, director, Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, and attending physician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, says there are a couple of challenges with the accountable care organization (ACO) and patient centered medical home (PCMH) care models.

Call it the $2.8 trillion enigma. That's the amount Americans spent on health care in 2012. The good news is that health spending slowed unexpectedly for the fourth consecutive year. The enigma is that no one really knows why. Despite many theories, there's no expert consensus.

Hospital officials, Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the poor complained Monday that the state's proposed rule on health insurance navigators could cripple efforts to educate Texans about their coverage options.

Across the country, Medicaid expansion varies among states. Some experts worried about whether that variation would drive Americans to relocate to other states so that they could obtain better medical coverage. However, those concerns are likely to prove unfounded, according to a recent study from Harvard.

The share of individuals who will gain insurance coverage under the federal healthcare reform law will vary sharply from state to state, according to a report released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

New federal estimates show that U.S. health spending growth continued to grow at a historically low rate in 2012 even as the economy rebounded.