Nearly one in two sick Americans cannot afford health care, even those with health insurance, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
While the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage expansions and consumer protections have dramatically reduced the uninsured rate to just under 11 percent, the United States still has a massive affordability problem.
About 15.5 percent of non-elderly people who have insurance either skipped or delayed medical care, citing cost...
obamacare
Cities sue Trump for sabotaging Obamacare
Four cities filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Thursday accusing the president and his cabinet of “waging a relentless campaign to sabotage and, ultimately, to nullify” the Affordable Care Act.
The suit — filed in a Maryland federal court by Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Baltimore — comes on the heels of the Department of Health and Human Services’ finalization Wednesday of regulations allowing people to keep short-term health insurance plans for up to...
GOP Senate candidates no longer want to talk about killing Obamacare
Once upon a time, Republicans made Obamacare an albatross for Democrats and made their vow to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act a centerpiece of their 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 campaigns. Then they got control of the government and repeatedly failed to keep that promise — as the law’s popularity hit all-time highs.
Now, suddenly Republican lawmakers and candidates are on the defensive for their desire to strip an estimated 23 million Americans of ...
Health and Human Services Department removes website’s language on sex discrimination
The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services changed or removed information on its website about sex discrimination, according to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation.
The Office for Civil Rights altered this information on several webpages on Section 1557, part of the Affordable Care Act that relates to sex discrimination, between March and August 2017, according to the nonprofit focused on government transparency. Now, mentions of sex discriminat...
Nebraska lawmakers are suing to block voters’ chance to give more people health care by ballot
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...
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 ...
BREAKING: Federal judge blocks Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements
A federal judge blocked Kentucky’s work requirement waiver Friday, meaning tens of thousands of low-income residents will not need to report working or volunteering at least 20 hours of work a week to keep their health care coverage.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, was to consider whether a slew of changes to Medicaid — work requirements, premiums, lockouts, a whole package of restrictions — should go into effect on Sunday, July 1. He decide...
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...
The Republicans’ Jekyll And Hyde approach to denting the opioid crisis
This week, the House has been voting on dozens of opioid bills ranging from monitoring prescriptions better to money for recovery coaches — a culmination of lawmakers’ work over the last year and a half. But as Congress works to make a dent in a drug epidemic that kills 115 people daily on average, many of these same lawmakers endorse ideas that undermine how people access addiction treatment.
So how far can piecemeal bills go when the Trump administration and Republican...
Trump’s Justice Department finally did something so lawless that even GOP leaders are recoiling
Last Friday, one day after the Justice Department filed a brief refusing to defend the Affordable Care Act, a senior DOJ attorney with over 20 years of experience at the department resigned in an apparent act of protest. The lawyer, Joel McElvain, was one of three career lawyers who withdrew from the case rather than signing their name to the Trump administration’s arguments — a highly unusual move by career Justice Department officials.
Then, on Tuesday of this week, th...