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A foursome of longtime industry watchdogs are helping steer the federal government's effort to overhaul the private insurance market. Karen Pollitz, Steve Larsen, Jay Angoff and Richard Popper have top spots in the newly minted Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Michelle Andrews' latest consumer column explores the health care tax credit for small businesses, which is designed to help employers pay for insuring workers. But the credit has several conditions, and some are worried that it won't provide enough help.
Challenges from conservative Democrats forced party leaders this week to cut some major spending programs, such as extending COBRA benefits for workers being laid off and providing extra money to state Medicaid programs.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said federal officials are urging self-insured employers to keep young adults up to age 26 on their parents' health plans before the deadline under the new health overhaul law. Self-insured employers, who pay the medical bills of millions of Americans, in many cases could wait until January to comply with the law.
With the new health law's requirement that young adults be able to remain on their parents' health plans until they turn 26. But when exactly the new benefit begins, who exactly is eligible and who decides all have the same answer: It depends.
Caught up in the congressional politics swirling around a pending tax bill are proposals that affect health care for newly laid-off workers as well as Medicare and Medicaid patients.
A new report says federal funding will not cover the insurance needs of all the people who now have trouble getting coverage because of preexisting conditions. But HHS officials disagree with the findings.
The new health overhaul law will encourage employers to stop offering health insurance. We should welcome this, provided the decline in employer coverage is gradual and good alternatives exist. The upside is that it will make more visible the biggest looming health care problem: costs.
College health plans - used by students who aren't covered by family insurance plans or whose parents are uninsured - can offer only limited protection. The new health law may help.
Some parents, hoping that their young adult children could get insurance soon, are finding that many large employers aren't planning to offer the new benefit early.
In a new KHN feature, Michelle Andrews writes about the coming changes to health care. The new law offers relief for people who can't get insurance because they are sick or have been sick. States can set up their own pools, or let the federal government do it.
State and federal officials are wrestling with how to define "unreasonable" premium increases, a thorny issue Congress has handed regulators.
This week featured more legal and political challenges to the new health law as the Obama adminstration issued rules to extend insurance coverage to young adults on their parents' plans.
Now that the health care bill is law, an array of groups -- representing doctors, insurers, small businesses and others -- have switched to their post-passage game plans. Among their top goals: Helping shape the all-important regulations being written by the Obama administration.
How many times have you heard President Obama say, "Health insurers won't be able to drop your coverage just because you get sick?" Or Kathleen Sebelius? Or the Democratic leadership in Congress? Or the mainstream news media? You would think that the private health insurance industry was being revolutionized.
The new health law mandates that insurers cannot pay less for emergency care in "out-of-network" hospitals and eases consumer worries about having to pre-authorize an emergency room visit.
Want to understand how the new health law might affect you? Be prepared to spend some time online.
The thinking behind the individual mandate is that, in the absence of a government-run "single payer" insurance program like Canada's, the only way to achieve universal health insurance is to require people to obtain coverage on their own, with government assistance for those who can't afford it. An excerpt from a new book, Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All, by The Washington Post.
A simple rule lies at the heart of the new health law: Starting in 2014, almost every American will need to carry health insurance or pay a fine. An excerpt from a new book, Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law and What It Means for Us All, by The Washington Post.
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