Health Care Delivery

States' refusal to expand their Medicaid programs could cost billions of dollars over the next 10 years, and those costs are staggering.

The downward trend in preventable hospital readmissions that began in 2012 has continued well into this year, according to data published Friday on the CMS' blog. Quality experts were impressed but had questions.

Reference prices, a health benefit strategy that requires patients to pay costs above a set price, may save employers and patients money, but their potential may be limited-perhaps even more so under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act has dramatically increased the cost of buying a health insurance plan on the individual market in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Georgia, and North Carolina, states that account for more than half of America's uninsured adults.

About 29,000 people successfully navigated HealthCare.gov and selected an insurance plan on Sunday and Monday, more than the entire number of people who were able to enroll through the federal exchange during the month of October, according to a person familiar with the project.

The individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act was intended to incentivize uninsured Americans into purchasing health insurance on the exchanges. However, latest findings show that the penalty may not be enough.

President Obama leaves the White House on Wednesday for one of the capital's most struggling neighborhoods to talk about the economy, not simply to divert attention from his troubled Affordable Care Act but to explain how that law, for all of its flaws, fits into his vision for Americans' economic security and upward mobility.

By all accounts, the shopping experience on HealthCare.gov has improved significantly. That means customers can routinely access information about what health plans and subsidies are available and select the product of their choice.

Like half the states, South Carolina chose not to expand Medicaid under the federal health law next year, citing the program's high costs and inefficiency.

Much of the healthcare spotlight has been squarely focused on the federal and state implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Yet, there is another fundamental shift in policy that is occurring at the private level that will change the way health insurance is offered to consumers.

Limited provider network options in the healthcare insurance exchange are causing concern that is not unlike the backlash managed care organizations received in the 1990s.

Officials in at least a half dozen states are pushing back against health plans in the new insurance markets that limit choice of doctors and hospitals in a bid to control medical costs.