Health Care – Pfizer vaccine 80 percent effective in young kids

May 23, 2022May 23, 2022 healthcare, News

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Vulnerable House Democrats urge action to prevent ObamaCare premium hike this fall

May 23, 2022May 23, 2022 health insurance premiums, healthcare, News, obamacare

A group of vulnerable House Democrats is warning of spikes in ObamaCare premiums this fall, saying that enhanced financial assistance from last year’s relief bill needs to be extended.

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) led the letter from 26 swing-district House Democrats to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling for the enhanced ObamaCare financial assistance to be extended as part of any party-line economic package that...

Latino families are facing a health coverage cliff — Congress must intervene

May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 healthcare, News, Opinion

Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the COVID-19 public health emergency through mid-July, a decision that helped maintain access for some of the 86 million Americans currently relying on Medicaid.

The secretary knows that while two-thirds of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, the pandemic is not yet over. Cases are continuing to rise this week, and more than 160,000 Latinos have died ...

Texans are bearing the cost of keeping the working class out of the statehouse

November 29, 2021 health, healthcare, medicaid, News, politics, Research, texas

In March, members of the Texas House of Representatives presented a proposal to expand Medicaid benefits. The bill, signed by 67 Democrats and nine Republicans, had enough votes to pass. It would have set Texas on the path to join the majority of US states (38 so far) that have expanded their populations’ eligibility for Medicaid—which provides healthcare insurance to low-income groups—since it became a possibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
In Texas, Medicaid is ...

Covid-19 showed the US how it could make universal healthcare work

April 15, 2021 health insurance, healthcare, News

The US has always relied heavily on private insurance to cover its citizens.
As of 2019, roughly two thirds of Americans with healthcare (about 90% of the population) got it through a private company. The remaining third used public coverage like Medicare, Medicaid, and tax credits for private insurance through the Affordable Care Act. It’s not a perfect system by a long stretch: Even those with insurance encounter debilitating medical bills due to the exorbitant, variable ...

Covid-19 showed the US how it could make universal healthcare work

April 15, 2021 health insurance, healthcare, News

The US has always relied heavily on private insurance to cover its citizens.
As of 2019, roughly two thirds of Americans with healthcare (about 90% of the population) got it through a private company. The remaining third used public coverage like Medicare, Medicaid, and tax credits for private insurance through the Affordable Care Act. It’s not a perfect system by a long stretch: Even those with insurance encounter debilitating medical bills due to the exorbitant, variable ...

The more the US invests in Obamacare, the more unsustainable it looks

March 25, 2021 Affordable Care Act, healthcare, News, obamacare

Obamacare has never been more successful. It’s also never been more obviously unsustainable.
In the wake of Covid-19 and the subsequent rise in unemployment, more Americans than ever turned to the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s marketplace to buy health insurance. Since early March, when president Joe Biden started a new open-enrollment period, more than 200,000 Americans have signed up. In 2020, 11.5 million health insurance policies were bought through the ACA, and of them, ...

Nursing homes owned by private equity have higher death rates

February 25, 2021 healthcare, News

Between 2004 and 2016 there were 20,150 excess deaths in American nursing homes, amounting to an estimated 160,000 lost years of life. The cause wasn’t a pandemic, but private equity.
Economists analyzed the mortality of patients in 18,485 nursing homes acquired by private equity companies between 2000 and 2017, versus other forms of for-profit ownership. It found that the likelihood of dying in a nursing home within the first 90 days of being admitted—a measure that’s a pr...

What is going to happen to the Affordable Care Act?

October 31, 2020 ACA, Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump, health, healthcare, News, obamacare, repeal and replace, Republican

There’s a new Supreme Court justice, Election Day is less than a week away, and the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality is set to be argued before the high court in two weeks. If you’re wondering about what this all means for the future of Obamacare, you’re not alone.
What happens to Obamacare if the Supreme Court decides against the ACA? What happens if Joe Biden wins the election? Or if Donald Trump remains in office? American healthcare coverage could be significantl...

Depending on where they live, coronavirus can still cost Americans thousands of dollars

May 20, 2020 health insurance, healthcare, News

Relatively early in America’s adventures in coronavirus, on March 18, the US government approved legislation that made coronavirus testing, as well as the visit to administer it, free for all Americans, whether or not they have health care insurance (although if the visit doesn’t result in a coronavirus test, it is not covered).
It was an essential policy: The fear of medical bills acts as a deterrent for many Americans, pushing them to delay, or avoid, tests or medical tr...