Health

All articles about health insurance or related to health insurance from Consumer Insurance Guide

If You Like Your Plan You Can Keep It, Less than Half the Time

By Benjamin Domenech, The Heartland Institute
If You Like Your Plan You Can Keep It, Less than Half the Time

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund shows more than half of insurance plans for individuals won’t survive Obamacare. The research was published in Health Affairs and conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago and Towers Watson. The fine folks at Stateline report: The study analyzed individual and group insurance data from 2010 for more than 2,000 public and private employers in five states: California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Utah and Michigan. These states make up…

Read More

Report outlines obesity-fighting strategies for insurers and consumers

By Consumer Insurance Guide Staff
Report outlines obesity-fighting strategies for insurers and consumers

America’s progress in arresting its obesity epidemic has been too slow, and the condition continues to erode productivity and cause millions to suffer from potentially debilitating and deadly chronic illnesses, according to a recent report from the Institute of Medicine. Obesity has a human toll of obesity-related chronic disease and disability, with an annual cost of $190.2 billion for treating obesity-related illnesses. In April 2012, Mayo Clinic released a study that found people who are obese…

Read More

Are Administrative Costs Evil?

By John C. Goodman, The Heartland Institute
Are Administrative Costs Evil?

Most health policy wonks do not seem to be bothered by bureaucracy in any field other than health care. For example, I almost never meet anyone who complains about high administrative costs in health care who makes the same complaint about education, where the problem is much more severe.  When Congress passed President Obama’s health care law, it definitely made things worse than they otherwise would have been by trying to regulate how much health…

Read More

Medicaid: Ticking Time Bomb for Texas, Other States

By Loren Heal, The Heartland Institute
Medicaid: Ticking Time Bomb for Texas, Other States

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry recently described the state’s Medicaid costs as a “ticking time bomb” that will threaten the state’s finances even more unless President Obama’s health care law is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court or repealed by Congress. According to calculations by The Heritage Foundation based on data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Texas’s Medicaid population will increase by 56.7 percent in 2014 under Obama’s law. That…

Read More

More Private Insurers Using Medicare Rates for Out-of-Network Payments

By Sarah McIntosh, The Heartland Institute
More Private Insurers Using Medicare Rates for Out-of-Network Payments

Patients may start having to pay more money out of pocket for health care if they do not pay attention to their insurers’ pricing policies. As health costs have continued to rise, private insurance providers have looked closely at any areas where they can cut costs. One of the easiest avenues to lowering costs is for these insurers to lower their out-of-network payments, as Aetna began doing in 2009, shifting their payment rates to resemble…

Read More

North Carolina Food Police Target Blogger for Dietary Advice

By Sara Burrows, The Heartland Institute
North Carolina Food Police Target Blogger for Dietary Advice

The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle. Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without a license. The law states “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling.” Steve Cooksey has learned the definition is…

Read More

Top Priority After Obamacare: Fix Medicaid

By Grace-Marie Turner, The Heartland Institute
Top Priority After Obamacare: Fix Medicaid

President Obama’s health care law could soon be struck down by the Supreme Court, or voters could finish the job in November. In considering what comes next, Medicaid reform is at the top of the list. Medicaid is the worst health care program in the country—a dismal program that finances care for low-income Americans but condemns them to long waits in emergency rooms for even routine care. The program pays doctors so little and requires…

Read More

Ten Articles Worth Reading on Obamacare’s Anniversary

By Benjamin Domenech, The Heartland Institute
Ten Articles Worth Reading on Obamacare’s Anniversary

On the second anniversary of President Obama’s health care law, the White House is engaging in little more than token promotion or celebration of the president’s signature domestic policy. They’ve created a promoted Twitter hashtag, #ILikeObamacare, which was supposed to be used to promote the law’s attributes – and instead has already been co-opted by opponents to highlight its defects. Obamacare has been the main topic we’ve focused on here at Health Care News over…

Read More

After Obamacare, What Does the Future Hold for Massachusetts’ Health Care Law?

By Marc Kilmer, The Heartland Institute
After Obamacare, What Does the Future Hold for Massachusetts’ Health Care Law?

Given the continuing unpopularity of the Affordable Care Act and the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling it unconstitutional later this year, some see an opportunity to do away with the health care reform legislation in Massachusetts that inspired the ACA. Given the state’s politics, though, such an effort will be much more difficult than the campaign to undermine the ACA. In 2006, Republican Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law a bill establishing sweeping health…

Read More
1 … 19 20 21 22 23 … 35