UnitedHealth Group reported fourth quarter and full year 2017 results reflecting continued broad-based growth and strengthened operating performance across the enterprise.
NASDAQ reports higher revenues, strength in both its segments, UnitedHealthcare and Optum, and membership growth led to the performance.
David S. Wichmann,...National News
Narrow networks are already the norm in Medicare Advantage and ACA exchange plans.
Narrow networks are open only to providers and hospitals that agree to meet specific quality requirements and likely accept lower reimbursements. The theory is to offer higher value care at a lower cost.
Payers and employers using narrow networks...National News
The new rules could make it easier for small businesses to band together and create health insurance plans that would be exempt from many of the consumer protections mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
The move permits "association health plans". The Labor Department said:
By joining together employers may reduce administrative...National News
The new estimate was included in a letter the budget office sent Friday to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT.
An Associated Press story in The Star Tribune reports the CBO now says a Senate bill adding five years of financing to the program would cost $800 million. Previously, the analysts estimated it would cost $8.2 billion.
The lower cost...National News
Published in Health Affairs this week, authors test a theory that Medicaid expansion prevents hospital closures.
Hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act were about six times less likely to close than hospitals in non-expansion states. In AHA Today, we learn Medicaid expansion was associated with...National News
A 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device manufacturers was originally imposed in 2013 as one of several taxes and fees in the Affordable Care Act that pay for expanded health insurance under the law.
Congress suspended the tax for 2016 and 2017 with the expectation it would be permanently abolished before 2018. In 2017, various GOP...National News
The uninsured rate and uncompensated care are expected to climb, impacting insurance rates for Americans and disproportional share hospitals (DSH). The Republican tax-reform bill clears penalties related to the individual and employer mandates. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) gets a promise from congressional leaders that bills...National News
In spite of obstacles, more than 8.8 million signed up through the federal marketplace.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said more than 8.8 million people have signed up in the 39 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website.
That compares to 9.2 million last year in the same states — or 96 percent of the...National News
The party line vote makes major changes.
The bill reflects a number of the Republican party’s priorities. In addition to cutting taxes, the bill also effectively repeals the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate requiring people to buy health insurance.
Repeal of the mandate actually will leave the health exchanges, subsidies...National News
Enrollment has faced numerous hurdles this year: shortened open enrollment period, reduced outreach effort, decreased online access, and more.
The deadline to signup for 2018 coverage is December 15. That's this coming Friday. Through Dec. 9, 4.68 million consumers signed up for the insurance in the 39 states that use the federally...Arizona News
Commercial real estate developers, construction industry and financing institutions all have a stake in the outcome.
When the Affordable Care Act was initially enacted, many Arizonans who had not had health insurance received access to care through insurance rather than in emergency rooms for the first time in their lives.
Due to...National News
The Senate version touched on many issues besides taxes.
The Senate tax bill must still be reconciled with House legislation that does not include the mandate’s repeal. But that is unlikely to be a major issue, given support in the GOP conference for repealing the mandate.
No Democrats in either chamber voted for the GOP tax...Arizona News
Governor Doug Ducey's proposal, to be submitted later this month, will be scaled back from the one federal officials rejected last year.
The governor is offering new exceptions and a limit on how much time someone needs to spend on a job or in training each week to keep receiving benefits.
Something else is different: The people...National News
AAA says repealing the mandate could raise premiums, cause insurers to become insolvent or leave the market altogether. The American Academy of Actuaries, whose tagline is Objective. Independent. Effective. wrote a letter to Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader and Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, to share the potential adverse...National News
Shorter open enrollment period, much less outreach funding, less convenient online access all lead to dire predictions.
In spite of surveys indicating 30 percent of Americans were unaware of the open enrollment for the ACA market place record numbers of people are signing up.
Through the first 18 days, nearly 2.3 million people...
Congress failed to authorize funding for 24,000 children of Arizona’s working poor by October 1.
Arizona Medicaid officials are preparing to implement a contingency plan. Use other cash Arizona gets from the federal government for its separate traditional Medicaid plan to pay the premiums for children in the KidsCare...
Free family fun festival to make it easy to enroll in health insurance before December deadlines.
The deadline for enrolling in 2018 marketplace coverage created by the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) is at midnight Dec. 15. The Arizona Daily Star reports enrollment assisters at Saturday’s event can help you learn...
As hospitals reduced readmissions for heart failure patients, their mortality rates increased, according to a recent JAMA study.
Modern Healthcare reports overall, the penalty program, established under the Affordable Care Act, has effectively motivated hospitals to change wasteful care practices and better manage populations....
The Republican tax plans are looking a lot more like health-care bills, with provisions that may affect coverage and increase medical expenses for millions of families.
Bloomberg reports the House version of the tax bill would end a deduction that allows families of disabled children and elderly people to write off large medical...National News
Thousands of businesses, many of them small or midsize, will soon receive a letter saying that they owe the government money because they failed to offer their workers qualifying health insurance.
The first round of notices are being mailed to companies that have at least 100 full-time employees and ran afoul of the law in 2015, the...
