Health Insurance and Medicare News & Features

Is Medicare overspending? A new study finds about half of generic meds were cheaper when purchased from the discount retailer than from the government program.

A new report reveals that the use of health care was lower among those whose primary language is Spanish compared to English speakers.

Who can get access to the health information you share in apps or online? Learn how to protect the privacy of your digital health data.

Learn about surprise medical billing, why it happens, what you can do, how to prevent it, and the new law.

Both United and Anthem want patients to pay for ED visits that are retroactively deemed to be unnecessary; ACEP suit against Anthem may be crucial

The court rejected a challenge from GOP-led states to scuttle the Affordable Care Act.

A new AMA report on practice patterns finds younger physicians more likely to seek employment and also tracks for the first time the market share of private equity firms.

A new study finds many of the pre-op tests patients undergo for relatively simple outpatient surgeries aren't necessary.

A new Gallup poll reveals many Americans remain in jobs they'd rather leave -- simply because they don't want to lose their health insurance.

President Joe Biden calls on Congress to support the creation of an advanced health research agency that would address the nation’s most critical diseases.

Wider use of prescription generic drugs could save Medicare nearly $2 billion a year, researchers say.

The research, based on Medicare claims data from 2010-2016, found that the program’s payments for doctors’ work were, on average, $114,000 higher per doctor per year when billed by a hospital than when billed by a doctor’s independent practice.

The gap between prices was even higher for brand-name drugs, with U.S. prices 3.44 times more than those in the other countries.

Under a rule that kicked in Jan. 1, hospitals are required to make public the prices they negotiate with insurers. That’s a lot more information than was previously required, which was only the posting of “chargemasters” — the hospital-generated list prices that few consumers or health plans actually pay.

Those fears aren't unfounded. Among those with private health insurance, 68% have received unexpected medical bills and 33% couldn't pay them on time, while 23% said they haven't paid them yet.

Now that a Supreme Court’s hearing on a new lawsuit seeking to kill the Affordable Care Act is over, what’s next for the law? Court watchers say that pointed questions and comments about the suit from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggest the court seems likely to issue a narrow ruling in the case.

Many of the US Supreme Court Justices raised questions about a lawsuit seeking to throw out the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during oral arguments on whether the law is unconstitutional.

he former vice president has sketched out a big health agenda: ramping up the federal response to COVID-19, boosting the Affordable Care Act, creating a new “public option” to cover uninsured Americans, and expanding Medicare and Medicaid. But the president-elect’s long to-do list on health is likely to face significant roadblocks in Congress and the courts, experts say.

During the 90-minute debate, the candidates sparred over the COVID-19 response and the future of the Affordable Care Act.

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have greatly different plans for improving Americans' health care and for tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Amy Coney Barrett, 48, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago since 2017, is President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court.

The percentage of families who had problems paying medical expenses in the previous year declined from about 20% in 2011 to 14% in 2018, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

Two million more Americans didn't seek health care from late 2016 through 2017 because they couldn't afford it and/or lacked insurance, new research shows.

DPC Frontier, which tracks the number of direct primary care practices nationally, estimates there are 1,219 practices in 48 states and Washington, D.C. They range in size from solo practitioners to corporate, multisite direct primary care organizations with thousands of doctors.

Nearly half of Americans (44%) said either they or a family member had received at least one surprise medical bill in the past, and most of them worried about how they would pay for it