News Articles

BY BERNARD J. WOLFSON KAISER HEALTH NEWS Almost 2 million of California’s poorest and most medically fragile residents may have to switch health insurers as a result of a new strategy by the state to improve care in its Medicaid program. A first-ever statewide contracting competition to participate in the program, known as Medi-Cal, required commercial […]

Like the insurance industry, the value-based profit industry hovers over doctors and patients and seeks to influence doctor-patient decision-making, and in the process diverts resources away from medical care.

By ZEKE MILLER and CARLA K. JOHNSON Associated Press SEPT. 12, 2022 4:33 PM PT BOSTON — President Biden on Monday urged Americans to come together for a new “national purpose” — his administration’s effort to end cancer “as we know it.” At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Biden channeled JFK’s famed moonshot speech 60 years ago,

Despite being a top spender on health care, the United States is an outlier among its peers on life expectancy. It sits well in the bottom half of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of several dozen mostly high-income nations. FULL ARTICLE

“Unfortunately, false or misleading advertisements and fraudulent sales practices are not new issues for Medicare beneficiaries,” said the chair of the Senate Finance Committee.

By JAKE JOHNSON PUBLISHED JUNE 1, 2022 1:30PM (EDT) he Biden administration quietly announced last week that it will leave in place one of the largest-ever Medicare premium hikes for the remainder of 2022, despite federal health officials’ decision to restrict coverage of the expensive and potentially ineffective Alzheimer’s drug that drove the increase. Progressive

By Reed Abelson April 28, 2022 Investigators urged increased oversight of the program, saying that insurers deny tens of thousands of authorization requests annually. Retired municipal workers at City Hall Park in Manhattan protested in February against being switched to a Medicare Advantage plan.Credit…Lev Radin/Pacific Press/ZUMA Press Wire, via Alamy Every year, tens of thousands

Single-payer universal healthcare is within reach for Californians. On Jan. 20, Assembly Bill 1400, also known as CalCare, passed the California state assembly appropriations committee. If CalCare passes the assembly floor by Jan. 31 it will advance to the state senate. Right now, around a third of California’s population is on Medi-Cal, a free public