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Insurers SCAN Group and CareOregon would form HealthRight, covering Medicare and Medicaid enrollees. Two nonprofit health plans focused on government-backed coverage are planning to combine in a deal that aims to create a sizable new player in the rapidly growing business of managed Medicare and Medicaid. SCAN Group, based in Long Beach, Calif., and CareOregon,

CALIFORNIA Plaintiff whose insurer delayed surgery is awarded $14 million over opioid dependency   Health Net was ordered to pay $14.4 million in damages after an L.A. County jury found it had delayed or denied care without proper cause. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times) BY CHRISTIAN MARTINEZSTAFF WRITER  DEC. 15, 2022 5:30 AM PT

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can’t pay for care.

United States. The ALS community rejoiced; the drug’s authorization was described as a “long-sought victory for patients.” But the next day, the price of the medicine was revealed: $158,000 a year. This was far higher than what the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, an independent nonprofit that analyzes health care costs, had estimated would be a reasonable price, which

BY CARMEN CARTAGENA AUG. 24, 2022 3:45 PM PT Vote Yes on Proposition 29 on the Nov. 8 ballot would make California dialysis clinics have certain reporting requirements, ownership disclosures and at least one physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant on-site while patients are being treated. Here, two essays argue for and against the ballot

September 28, 20225:01 AM ET PROSPER, Texas — Almost everything about the opening of the 2019 Prosper High School Eagles’ football season was big. The game in this Dallas-Fort Worth suburb began with fireworks and a four-airplane flyover. A trained eagle soared over the field. And some 12,000 fans filled the team’s new stadium, a

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,