Abortion’s Becoming A Hot Corporate Benefit. Here’s What You Need To Know To Use It.
If you want an abortion in the U.S., one of your first steps might be figuring out whether your insurance will cover the service. And even though 11 states restrict insurance coverage of abortion in all private insurance plans, many employer-based insurances do cover abortion. Advertisement This may come as a surprise to people who […]
Opinion | We’re Depriving Underserved Patients of the Best Drugs
During a busy clinic day for patients without health insurance, one of us received a jarring announcement. Certain lifesaving medications that we had previously been able to freely provide to patients were no longer available. The costs of these drugs were far beyond the reach of our patients, and so healthcare teams were forced to […]
Millions Of You Have Gotten Cheap ACA Coverage; Millions More Still Could
Nearly 14 million people have signed up for private insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported on Monday. There are two reasons you might want to pay attention to that. One is the implications for policy and politics. The new enrollment figure is the highest in […]
Biden Administration Will Require Insurers To Cover At-Home COVID-19 Tests
The Biden administration plans to mandate that private health insurance providers reimburse people for over-the-counter COVID-19 tests to make those at-home kits free. The federal health, labor and treasury departments will issue the guidance to insurers by Jan. 15, according to senior administration officials on a press call late Wednesday. Advertisement More than 150 million […]
Workers’ Share of Annual Premium for Employer Health Plans Nears $6,000
Latest Prevention & Wellness News THURSDAY, Nov. 11, 2021 (HealthDay News) Health insurance has gotten slightly more expensive during the pandemic: A new survey shows that annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose 4%, to an average of $22,221 this year. Of that amount, employees paid an average of nearly $6,000 toward […]
Health Insurance Coverage Stable in 2020, Despite Pandemic
Rates of health insurance coverage remained mostly stable during the pandemic, with an estimated 1.6 million more Americans gaining coverage in 2020, according to an early release from the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). From 2019 to 2020, the uninsured rate dropped from an estimated 10.3% (33.2 million) to 9.7% (31.6 million), a non-significant […]
It Looks Like The Number Of Uninsured Americans Didn’t Spike During The Pandemic
Sometimes it’s news when a bad thing doesn’t happen. The story of health insurance coverage during the pandemic appears to be one of those times. Back in early 2020, when COVID-19 first began to force businesses to shut down, unemployment soared and the number of uninsured Americans seemed certain to soar, too. But a pair of […]
There’s Still Time To Get Cheap Health Care (But Just Barely)
You might be able to get a really good deal on health insurance, but only if you act right now. No, that’s not a line from a schlocky television advertisement. It’s true, and it may apply to you if you get coverage on your own ― in other words, if you don’t get insurance through […]
Private Equity Is Ruining American Healthcare
For-profit insurance companies have long been regarded as the ultimate offenders in medical profiteering. However, they distract from the unscrupulous involvement of private equity (PE) in medicine, a similarly culpable and even more insidious economic titan. PE is a unique, unregulated investment platform with the objective of aggressively generating short-term revenue for the firm and […]
Obamacare Marketplace Sign-ups Pass 2 Million, Likely Pushing Down Uninsured Rate
More than 2 million people have signed up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces since Feb. 15, taking advantage of the Biden administration’s extended period for open enrollment that began on that day, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday. That figure means total marketplace enrollment is probably at an […]