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The Montana health department says the Board of Public Assistance is redundant and a bureaucratic hurdle that helps few people. Current and former board representatives say the rare cases in which the panel helps people are important.
State Medicaid and Affordable Care Act programs have long struggled to connect with lower-income Americans to help them access care. Now some are trying an alternative approach: meeting them at the laundromat.
Gloria Sachdev, a pharmacist by training, has spent years taking on the health care establishment in Indiana, working to pull down high hospital prices and make information public to patients. Now, in a newly created position in the governorās Cabinet, sheās no longer fighting from the outside.
The Affordable Care Act requires most insurance plans to cover preventive care, including many forms of contraception, without cost to patients ā but not if theyāre āgrandfatheredā plans, which predate the law.
A sweeping Trump administration order threw the nationās health system into disarray Tuesday, as states and the health industry tried to make sense of what looked like a freeze on federal Medicaid funding.
Enhanced federal subsidies and more state aid for out-of-pocket costs have made health insurance purchased through Californiaās marketplace more affordable. It's unclear if the incoming Republican Congress will extend the enhanced subsidies beyond 2025.
With just days to go before the official launch of a new administration, the GOP-led Congress is putting together plans on how to enact incoming President Donald Trumpās agenda, with a particular emphasis on cutting spending on the Medicaid program. Meanwhile, the Biden administration makes major moves in its last days, including banning a controversial food dye and ordering cigarette companies to minimize their nicotine content. Joanne Kenen of Johns Hopkins University and Politico Magazine, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call join Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Harris Meyer, who reported and wrote the latest Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News āBill of the Monthā feature, about a colonoscopy that came with a much larger price tag than estimated.
California has a few major changes coming to its health policy landscape in 2025. New laws that took effect Jan. 1 ban medical debt from credit reports, allow public health inspections of private immigration detention centers, and ban toxic chemicals in makeup.
Republicans in Washington are working on plans to shrink Medicaid, the nearly $900-billion-a-year government health insurance program that covers 1 in 5 Americans.
Health is unlikely to be a top priority for the new GOP-led 119th Congress and President-elect Donald Trump. But itās likely to play a key supporting role, with an abortion bill already scheduled for debate in the Senate. Meanwhile, itās unclear when and how the new Congress will deal with the bipartisan bills jettisoned from the previous Congressā year-end omnibus measure ā including a major deal to rein in the power of pharmacy benefit managers. In this ācatch up on all the news you missedā episode, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Shefali Luthra of The 19th, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
Legislative leaders say the decision whether to renew Montanaās Medicaid expansion program this year will loom over behavioral health spending and hospital regulation, among other topics.
As Gov. Gavin Newsom enters the second half of his final term, health care stands out as his most ambitious but glaringly incomplete initiative for California residents. The issue will likely shape his national profile for better or worse. And now, Donald Trump brings a new wrinkle.
Advocates say it is discrimination and are arguing for āinsurance fairnessā on the grounds that people who have joints surgically replaced typically donāt face the same kinds of coverage challenges.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News staff made the rounds on national and local media in the last two weeks to discuss topical stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
A whistleblower suit alleged a health insurer bilked Medicare by exaggerating how sick patients were.
Donald Trumpās first administration advanced rules forcing hospitals and insurers to reveal prices for medical services. Employers donāt want to risk backtracking during Trumpās second administration.
A man in Chicago with a troubling symptom underwent a common procedure. Then he wanted to know why the hospital charged nearly three times its own cost estimate.
The number of new and returning enrollees using healthcare.gov ā the federal marketplace that serves 31 states ā is well below last yearās as of early December. Also, a Biden administration push to give āDreamersā access to Obamacare coverage and subsidies is facing court challenges.
A group of Democratic senators asked the Government Accountability Office to examine a Georgia program that requires some Medicaid enrollees to work, study, or volunteer 80 hours a month for coverage. They cited Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health Newsā reporting, which has documented the programās high costs and low enrollment.
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