Health Care

Medicaid Work Rules Approved for South Carolina

By Michael Rainey

The Trump administration on Thursday approved South Carolina’s request to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...
Watchdog Questions $6.7 Billion in Medicare Payments

By Michael Rainey

Health insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program have received billions in extra payments after making adjustments to their patient charts – changes that the Department of Health and...
House Passes Pelosi’s Sweeping Drug Bill

By The Fiscal Times Staff

A bill backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that would empower the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices passed the House Thursday in a 230-192 vote, largely along party lines. As we told you...
Shocking Health Care Statistic of the Day

By Michael Rainey

Consumer health insurance costs are up more than 20% year over year, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index data released Wednesday. Medical care costs overall have risen 4.2% from...
Ready to Rumble: How Pelosi’s Drug Bill Sets Up Dems for 2020

By Michael Rainey

After making a deal with liberal Democrats Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to have cleared the way for a vote this week on a sweeping bill that would empower Medicare to negotiate drug...

Congress Really Wants to Get Something Done on Drug Prices. It May Fail Anyway

By Yuval Rosenberg

Lawmakers are eager to show they can deliver on the issues the American public cares most about, so even as House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump on Tuesday,...
Surprise Deal to Protect Patients From Surprise Medical Bills

By Michael Rainey

After struggling for months to reach consensus, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers announced Sunday evening they had come to an agreement on legislation that would protect patients from...
Obamacare Back at the Supreme Court — With Billions for Insurers on the Line

By Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News

More than $12 billion is at stake for the nation’s health insurers Tuesday when the Supreme Court hears another Affordable Care Act case. For the federal government, the potential damages could be...
The Rising Tide of Health Care Costs

By The Fiscal Times Staff

We told you yesterday about new data from the Medicare actuaries showing health care spending in the U.S. hitting a record high last year, totaling $3.65 trillion overall, or more than $11,000 per...
The Healthiest — and Unhealthiest — US States

By Yuval Rosenberg

Vermont is the healthiest state in the U.S., according to the latest annual ranking by the United Health Foundation. Vermont climbed three spots, thanks in part to “a low incidence of chlamydia, a...

Elizabeth Warren’s $20.5 Trillion Plan to Fund Medicare for All

By Michael Rainey

Elizabeth Warren on Friday detailed how she intends to pay for Medicare for All without raising costs for middle-class households. The senator from Massachusetts said her plan will cover everyone in...
Survey of the Day: 60% of Americans Favor Dem Approaches to Health Care

By Yuval Rosenberg

Americans are evenly divided when asked to pick their favorite health-care reform approach from three options resembling leading proposals, according to a new survey from The New York Times, the...
$Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during an event to introduce the "Medicare for All Act of 2017\$

Sanders Insists He’ll Pay for ‘Every Nickel’ of Medicare for All — but Won’t Say How Right Now

By Yuval Rosenberg

In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC’s John Harwood published Tuesday, Bernie Sanders said he doesn’t think he needs to lay out a detailed plan to finance his Medicare for All proposal right now,...
Number of Uninsured Children Increases by 400,000

By Michael Rainey

A new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute says the number of uninsured children in the U.S. increased by more than 400,000 between 2016 and 2018. Some key findings from the...
The Eye-Popping Tax Hikes Needed to Pay for Medicare for All

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is the latest group to take a stab at answering the big question looming over the Medicare-for-All debate — and Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign...