If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual health insurance mandate, but leaves most or all of the rest of the Affordable Care Act intact, Congress will have some work to do. Without some way to push uninsured healthy Americans into the marketplace, insurance prices could creep upward until they become unaffordable for everyone.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive story about how McDonald’s might have to eliminate health insurance for their workers because of the Affordable Care Act. As WSJ reporter Janet Adamy wrote: The move is one of the clearest indications that new rules may disrupt workers’ health plans as the law ripples through the [...]
Just not to me – or any other media types for that matter. The new head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid has, until today, been kept under virtual lock and key by the Obama Administration. He was installed via recess appointment, circumventing the Senate confirmation process, which would have included a public hearing. [...]
After claims from insurance companies that they plan to dramatically increase premiums this year because of the Affordable Care Act, the White House fired off a threat to the industry’s main lobbying group today. Writing to the head of America’s Health Insurance Plans, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said insurers that hike rates [...]
There are a few very simple truths about how health insurance works, which some commentators and politicians can’t seem to grasp. The result is a constant drumbeat of disingenuous statements that misrepresent how health reform will work and why the Affordable Care Act was written as it is. The latest failure to grasp comes from [...]
Reuters has a stunner today. The insurance company WellPoint had a policy of targeting its customers with fraud investigations if they were diagnosed with breast cancer, according to federal investigators. The goal: Find a reason to drop their coverage of sick women before big bills started to arrive. The women all paid their premiums on [...]
From my new story on Time.com: The health-insurance industry, which spent months campaigning against Democratic health reform, has shifted focus in the wake of its passage, pivoting from opposition to making sure the new law succeeds beyond most expectations. America’s Health Insurance plans will participate in a new group, provisionally called “Enroll America,” to encourage [...]
Today’s speech by President Obama was not the first in which he’s urged passage of comprehensive health care reform, but he’s hoping it will be his last. We’ll see. Flanked by health care workers and wearing a bipartisan purple tie – a rarity for him – President Obama delivered remarks that carried a theme of [...]
