Health Care Delivery

While health law reform and expansion of insurance coverage comes with good intentions, there are many other decisions that are seemingly shifting care in the opposite direction.

The Republican-led Michigan House gave final approval on Tuesday to a bill that would expand the Medicaid health program for the poor under Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law.

Medicine is unique in being the one profession that never teaches even its recruits how they, or the services they deliver, are paid and importantly, by whom.

Premium rates for health plan policies in the health insurance exchange (HIE) are expected to vary nationally, but they aren't likely to skyrocket - at least according to one research group.

Fearing Obamacare will drastically increase the cost of health insurance policies next year, some employers are turning to new strategies to blunt or at least delay the "rate shock."

As insurers prepare to implement a law designed to make health coverage affordable, insurance rates are dramatically increasing.

Hospitals, nurses, doctors and other medical providers urged New Hampshire on Tuesday to expand Medicaid to an estimated 49,000 poor adults under the federal health care overhaul law.

The U.S. health care bureaucracy is expanding; both dramatically (e.g. the implementation of the Affordable Care Act) and gradually. A recent decision proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) exemplifies the dangers to medical innovation and patients represented by the gradual expansion of the health care bureaucracy.

The Obama administration has delayed a step crucial to the launch of the new healthcare law, the signing of final agreements with insurance plans to be sold on federal health insurance exchanges starting October 1.

Debated and despised, the Medicare physician payment formula may finally be on the way out at least that's what AMA President Ardis Hoven believes.

Amitabh Chandra, PhD, says health reform affects patient-centered diabetes care through two different interventions.

As healthcare costs rise in Florida, insurers and hospitals vested in the success of the Affordable Care Act, are coming up with new ways to cut costs from buying services in bulk and piloting programs to lowering hospital readmission rates and limiting the number of doctors within a plan's network.

Susan Dentzer, senior policy adviser, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says there are many trends that are transforming today's health insurance marketplace.

Only 6 states across the country are currently receiving funds through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision intended to increase Medicaid managed-care payments to meet Medicare payment levels.

Tomas Philipson, PhD, says historical reform efforts in the United States have raised doubts as to whether or not the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will slow health spending growth. Dr Philipson also suggests that concepts of value-based insurance design must be considered differently when managing a chronic condition like diabetes.

As congressional Republicans push for a delay in the 2010 health law's individual mandate, the Obama administration Tuesday announced final regulations implementing the requirement that most Americans have health insurance coverage by Jan. 1 or pay a fine.

As American workers prepare for the first open enrollment season of the Obamacare era, hints are surfacing about what awaits them - higher deductibles, more incentives for staying well and premium hikes that continue to out-strip wages, albeit by more moderate amounts than in the past.

Facing anticipated reductions in funding and regulatory changes under the health care reform law, several of the nation's largest health insurers have indicated plans to scale back their Medicare Advantage programs.

They are bare-bones health plans, and critics say they could leave consumers who become seriously ill on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical costs.

The healthcare reform act intends to extend insurance coverage for millions of Medicare patients nationwide, but that doesn't mean it will expand their access to physicians.

While the employer mandate delay and other stalls in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act have raised a few eyebrows, a recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation brings forth some encouraging news.

The Affordable Care Act promises to expand access to health care by providing affordable coverage to millions of Americans. But finding a policy that meets your health care needs and your budget requirements can be daunting.

About half the people who now buy their own health insurance- and potentially would face higher premiums next year under President Barack Obama's healthcare law- would qualify for federal tax credits to offset rate shock, according to a new private study.

Opinions rage about whether health insurance costs will rise or fall with implementation of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act relies heavily on expanding Medicaid eligibility to increase insurance coverage and healthcare access. But its authors had to make sure that physicians would accept new Medicaid patients.

The health reform key is in, but the implementation ignition just won't start.

Two bills could expand the roles of nurse practitioners and pharmacists in California, as experts debate the scope of care they should provide in clinical settings.

Hospitals across the nation are being swept up in the biggest wave of mergers since the 1990s, a development that is creating giant hospital systems that could one day dominate American health care and drive up costs.

Although healthcare insurance exchange (HIE) enrollment is intended for October 1 of this year, residents of Oregon will have to wait a bit longer to do it themselves.

Like their predecessors in health care's parade of acronyms -- HMOs and MCOs -- ACOs will need to balance quality patient care with saving money. When that balance is questioned by consumers and inevitably by the courts, how, exactly, will the risk be shared?