Money once reserved for wage increases is now diverted to pay for employer-provided health insurance. A new study provides stunning estimates: For the bottom 60 percent of U.S. workers, wage gains have been completely wiped out by contributions for employer-provided health insurance.
“For many workers, rising health insurance premiums were eating up every last cent of their pay increases and more,” the study said.”
Our health care system must improve quality while reducing the cost of care. There is near-universal agreement that, to do so, we must move from fee-for-service reimbursement to paying for the value of care received.
Yet, despite the fact that the idea of “volume to value” has been around for a decade or more, it is not yet the norm. That means too many patients are not getting the care they need, and our health care system has become too expensive.
The United States could see a shortage of up to 120,000 physicians by 2030, impacting patient care across the nation, according to new data published today by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges). The report, The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2016-2030, updates and aligns with estimates conducted in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and shows a projected shortage of between 42,600 and 121,300 physicians by the end of the next decade.
The Obama administration improperly paid out $434 million to Obamacare customers to pay down the cost of insurance in 2014, the first year the law’s health insurance marketplaces went online, a federal watchdog reported Monday.
In the battle over who is to blame for high prices Obamacare insurance, a new study finds that the reason is fewer insurers competing for customers, a new study finds.
As state policymakers consider expanding their Medicaid programs under the ACA, they should study the experiences of other states.
Premiums in California’s health insurance exchange will rise by an average of 8.7% next year. The average increase in California is smaller than the double-digit hikes expected around the nation, due largely to a healthier mix of enrollees and more competition in its marketplace. Still, health insurance prices keep growing faster than wages and general inflation as a result of rising medical costs overall, squeezing many middle-class families who are struggling to pay their household bills.
Health insurance companies in Colorado have asked to increase premiums by an average of 5.94 percent for 2019 in the Obamacare market, according to rate filings.
No insurers are leaving the exchange, and every county will have at least one health insurer offering coverage. The requested average premium increase for individual gold plans is 6.85 percent, and 12.3 percent for silver plans. For bronze plans, the requested average premium increase is 0.9 percent. Anthem’s filings requested a decrease in premium rates.
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Despite receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money, Medicaid insurers are lax in ferreting out fraud and neglect to tell states about unscrupulous medical providers, according to a federal report released Thursday.
The U.S. Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office said a third of the health plans it examined had referred fewer than 10 cases each of suspected fraud or abuse to state Medicaid officials in 2015 for further investigation. Two insurers in the program, which serves low-income Americans, didn’t identify a single case all year, the report found.
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The expansion in coverage due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased the number of insured Americans by 20 million. Although access to health insurance has expanded significantly in recent years, and the ACA instituted important protections for patients, those who gained insurance through ACA health insurance exchanges are being offered plans that make them bear an increasing portion of their healthcare costs since the law was implemented. Access to health insurance is not sufficient if patients cannot afford to purchase coverage or utilize their benefits due to high premiums, high out-of-pocket costs, limited networks, and insufficient state and federal patient protections.
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