Health Insurance – Page 4

Private insurers increasingly reliant on government business

From the Washington Post – Despite the sluggish economy, the nation’s major health insurers have prospered in large part by expanding their role in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study released Thursday. The share of large insurers’ revenues contributed by their Medicare and Medicaid business has jumped from 36 to…

Fewer Americans get health insurance through job

Employer-sponsored coverage is growing more expensive and covering less. From AMA-ASSN.org – Findings by the Commonwealth Fund and polling by Gallup show that fewer workers are getting health insurance, and those who have it are paying more for less. Polling released in November by Gallup showed the smallest percentage of American adults covered by employer-sponsored…

New study shows health insurance premium spikes in every state

From the Washington Post – Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have risen faster than incomes in every state in the nation, according to a report released Thursday. The analysis of federal data by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research organization, shed new light on the state-by-state picture while essentially confirming a national trend, highlighted in…

U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths

Up to 84,000 Lives Annually Could Be Saved if the U.S. Lowered Its Preventable Death Rate to That of the Top Three Performing Nations From the Commonwealth Fund – The United States placed last among 16 high-income, industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective…

Health Law to Be Revised by Ending a Program

By Robert Pear for the New York Times – The Obama administration announced Friday that it was scrapping a long-term care insurance program created by the new health care law because it was too costly and would not work. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said she had concluded that premiums would…

Healthy Rebellion: The Uninsured Step Forward

By Paul Glover for Tikkun – For ninety-nine years the campaign for universal health coverage has relied on conferences, panel discussions, petitions, and rallies. These vent moral indignation but lack power. Today, 51 million Americans without medical insurance and 30 million Americans paying for inadequate coverage will not get prompt affordable health care through polite…

Sharp Rise in U.S. Health Insurance Cost

By Reed Abelson for the New York Times – The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs. A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group…

Investors with a Conscience Should Divest from Health Insurance Companies

By Rob Stone for Tikkun.org – I was the doctor on duty one night in August when the ambulance rushed a man into our Midwestern hospital ER. As I walked into the room, the scene was right out of TV. A nurse was trying to start an IV. Someone was running an EKG. A student…

The Devilish Detail of Obama’s Speech

By John Nichols for NPR – President Obama has erected what is likely to be the left flank in the debates of the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction—the so-called “super-committee” that will define so much of this fall’s fiscal and economic discourse. That flank is sturdier than some of the president’s critics on…

Still Paying Through the Nose, Labor Campaigns for Single Payer

By Andy Coates for Labor Notes – A year after President Obama signed his health care reform with strong support from the labor movement, advocates of a single-payer system might be tempted to ask, “How’s that working out for you?” At last weekend’s conference of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer, a Plumbers and Pipe…