Health Care

Medicare Improper Payments Fall to Lowest Level Since 2010

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Monday that the improper payment rate for traditional Medicare fell in fiscal year 2019 to 7.25%, down from 8.12% in fiscal year 2018 and...
The Startlingly High Cost Of The ‘Free’ Flu Shot

By Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News

In the Byzantine world of health care pricing, most people wouldn’t expect that the ubiquitous flu shot could be a prime example of how the system’s lack of transparency can lead to disparate costs...
Trump Issues Rule to Force Hospitals to Reveal Negotiated Prices

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Trump administration on Friday released the final version of a rule forcing hospitals to publicly disclose the prices they negotiate privately with insurers or face fines. The rule, which would...
Warren Explains How She’d Transition to Medicare for All

By Michael Rainey

Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveiled on Friday a multi-year plan to transition to Medicare for All, outlining a series of immediate reforms on a path toward a universal, single-payer health care system. In...
Trump Wants to Get More Aggressive With His Drug-Pricing Proposal

By Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump wants to get more aggressive on lowering some Medicare drug prices. The Trump administration last year proposed using an index of international drug prices to set prices for certain...

‘Medicare for All’ Is a Loser at the Polls, Analysis Finds

By Yuval Rosenberg

Democratic House candidates who supported Medicare for All in the 2018 midterm elections fared considerably worse than those who did not back the plan, according to a new analysis by Alan I...
Verma Attacks Critics of Medicaid Work Requirement, Pushes for Tighter Eligibility

By Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News

Seema Verma, the Trump administration’s top Medicaid official, Tuesday sharply attacked critics of her plan to force some Medicaid enrollees to work, a policy that led to thousands of people losing...
Elizabeth Warren Says Americans Will Spend $11 Trillion on Health Care. Is That True?

By Michael Rainey

Elizabeth Warren says that Americans will spend “about $11 trillion on insurance premiums, copays, deductibles and uncovered medical expenses” over the next 10 years if the current health care system...
The Horrifying Number of Americans Who Can’t Afford Their Prescription Drugs

By Michael Rainey

An estimated 58 million Americans – nearly 23% of the population – couldn’t afford a drug they needed at some point in the last 12 months, according to a new Gallup-West Health poll published Tuesday...
Americans Want Lower Drug Prices, but Lawmakers Can’t Agree on a Fix

By Emmarie Huetteman, Kaiser Health News

House Democrats are poised to pass sweeping legislation to lower drug prices using strategies President Donald Trump has endorsed. A Trump aide urged the Republican-controlled Senate to vote on 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...