Health Care

Lawmakers Battle Over Veterans Health Funding

By Yuval Rosenberg

A complicated fight over spending on a veterans health program is throwing a wrench into the congressional appropriations process for 2019. The showdown could force lawmakers to fall back on another...
New Indexes Track Rising Drug Prices

By Yuval Rosenberg

Bloomberg News today introduced price indexes for some of the most common and best-known drugs. The indexes cover 40 of the most widely used treatments across six categories: “diabetes, cancer, HIV,...
Former HHS Secretary Tom Price Wasted More Than $300,000 on Travel

By Michael Rainey

President Trump’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price improperly spent at least $341,000 on travel, according to an Inspector General report issued Friday. The IG reviewed 21 trips...
Medicaid Insurers Could Be Doing More to Catch Fraud and Abuse: Report

By Yuval Rosenberg

Medicaid insurers could be doing more to prevent fraud, waste and abuse that cost states billions of dollars a year, according to a new report released by the Office of Inspector General of the...
Some Drugmakers Are Canceling Price Hikes – but Not Because of Trump

By Yuval Rosenberg

Pfizer may have decided to roll back drug price hikes after being criticized by President Trump, but Bloomberg reports that several other large drugmakers are canceling or reducing planned price...

What Pfizer’s Drug Price Hike Reversal Really Means

By Yuval Rosenberg

After being publicly blasted by President Trump and then having an “extensive discussion” with him, drug giant Pfizer announced Tuesday that it will roll back the price hikes that took effect July 1...
Democrats Rally Against Threats To The ACA To Block Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee

By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News

Senate Democrats, who are divided on abortion policy, are instead turning to health care as a rallying cry for opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. Specifically, they are...
Kavanaugh Supreme Court Fight Will Be All About Health Care

By Yuval Rosenberg

The fight over President Trump’s pick of Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is on, with Democrats launching what The Washington Post called “an all-out blitz” to defeat the...
Here’s Who’s Winning the War Over Obamacare

By Yuval Rosenberg

The years-long battles over Obamacare aren’t over yet, but one clear winner has emerged, writes Joanne Kenen at Politico. Health-care consultants are reaping a bonanza. The ingredients are ripe for...
Trump Administration Freezes Obamacare Payments

By Michael Rainey

The Trump administration announced Saturday that it will freeze billions of dollars in payments to insurance companies participating in the federal health program established by the Affordable Care...

Tom Price Now Says Obamacare Will Cost More Because of GOP’s Individual Mandate Repeal

By Yuval Rosenberg

President Trump’s former secretary of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty will likely raise the cost of health insurance...
4 Million More Uninsured as Trump Chips Away at Obamacare

By Yuval Rosenberg

The number of Americans without health insurance has risen significantly since 2016, reversing some of the strong gains made following the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, according to the...
Making the Case for Health Care Price Controls

By The Fiscal Times Staff

“A growing number of studies suggest some cause for optimism” on health care costs, writes Robert J. Samuelson in The Washington Post . Researchers have found that Medicare pays much less than...
A Data Dump That Could Make a Difference in Health Care

By Yuval Rosenberg

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans, which are offered by private companies approved by Medicare, has grown from 5.3 million people in 2004 to 19 million people — or almost a third of the Medicare...
Critics Slam Trump Administration's Short-Term Health Insurance Proposal

By Yuval Rosenberg

Monday marked the end of the comment period on a proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services to allow short-term health insurance plans to provide coverage for as long as 364 days, up...