In November, Nebraska voters will get the opportunity to vote on whether or not the government should provide more low-income residents health insurance. But a new lawsuit from Republican lawmakers is trying to deny voters their say.
Should Nebraska residents vote to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of poverty level, an estimated 90,000 people statewide will gain health care.
Nebraska is one of four states aiming to expand Medicaid insurance this fall. The others ar...
health care
Trump signals an end to Obamacare payment program, threatening sharply higher health premiums
The Trump administration is expected to end a critical Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance payment program that discourages insurers from cherry picking healthier enrollees by compensating them for sicker ones.
The move, should it happen, would rattle insurance companies at the very moment when they’re deciding whether to continue selling ACA plans and setting premiums for 2019.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story:
The suspension ...
Vermont to regulate Trump administration’s fraud-prone association health plan rule
Vermont officials are seeking to regulate the Trump administration’s association health plan proposal, introduced in January and finalized by the Department of Labor last month, amid concerns that the plans would make health insurance inaccessible and prone to fraud.
Introduced under the guise of providing consumers with more choice and cheaper options, association health plans (AHP) allow businesses to form associations based on geography or industry and can provide insurance plans...
Vermont to regulate Trump administration’s fraud-prone association health plan rule
Vermont officials are seeking to regulate the Trump administration’s association health plan proposal, introduced in January and finalized by the Department of Labor last month, amid concerns that the plans would make health insurance inaccessible and prone to fraud.
Introduced under the guise of providing consumers with more choice and cheaper options, association health plans (AHP) allow businesses to form associations based on geography or industry and can provide insurance plans...
America is running out of OB/GYNs
There aren’t enough Ob-GYNs in America, and soon there will be even fewer. Half the counties in the US don’t have any practicing OB-GYNs. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) puts the current shortage at 6,000 to 9,000 OB-GYNs countrywide, a numb...
Conservatives are trying to make it the summer of Obamacare repeal
A group of Republicans and Washington D.C. think tanks released a proposal Tuesday that aims to resurrect Obamacare repeal. The consistent chatter around the proposal has drawn ire from the White House and GOP leadership, as the midterms are just months away, and repeal efforts haven’t proved to be winning strategies.
The seven-page whitepaper titled “The Health Care Choices Proposal: Policy Recommendations to Congress” asks lawmakers to scrap the Affordable Care A...
This 2011 quote from Jeff Sessions just became really awkward
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice will not defend in court the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s consumer protections, including the ban on discrimination against people with pre-existing medical conditions, it announced Thursday. While Attorney General Jeff Sessions is far from the first to opt not to defend a law he deems unconstitutional, many prominent Republicans — including Sessions himself — were highly critical of the practice jus...
More than 100 arrested nationwide for rallying for health care and environmental protection
Activists with the national Poor People’s Campaign faced backlash from government officials and law enforcement during nationwide protests Monday. More than 100 people in Kentucky, Kansas, California, New York, Maryland, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. were arrested or blocked from entering government buildings.
The campaign, which marks 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized thousands of Americans...
Trump breaks key populist campaign promise to negotiate Medicare drug prices
On the campaign trail, candidate Trump promised to save hundreds of billions of dollars standing up to the pharmaceutical industry, and said he’d “negotiate like crazy” to bring down Medicare prescription drug prices.
Allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for better prices has long been a goal for progressives, and when voters heard Trump stray from the Republican party orthodoxy, railing against Big Pharma as he asked for their support, many ...
New insurance rates prove Trump’s policies have increased Obamacare premiums
Early signs show health insurance companies are trying to exponentially raise prices for plans sold on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace — and for people who don’t qualify for federal assistance, there’s no relief in sight.
Insurers in Maryland and Virginia are asking for double-digit premium increases to 2019 monthly plans. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield CEO Chet Burrell said that Maryland’s exchange is in the “advanced stages of a death spiral.̶...