Health Insurance, Health Care | featured news

As campaign debate over Medicare intensifies, former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama have been accusing one another of threatening the future of the government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Sandra Pico is poor, but not poor enough... Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal insurance program. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law.

Insurers and government officials say a new regulation regarding health insurance rebates may be keeping premiums lower for everyone.

After years of shipping data-processing, accounting and other back-office work abroad, some healthcare companies are starting to shift clinical services and decision-making on medical care overseas, primarily to India and the Philippines. Some of the jobs being sent abroad include so-called pre-service nursing, where nurses at insurance firms, for example, help assess patient needs and determine treatment methods.

Republican politicians across the country claim that Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, the widely popular program which makes health insurance available for lower-income Americans, will increase costs for states. Ten Republican governors have pledged not to accept the Medicaid expansion funds and 22 other governors are considering turning down the money.

Insurance companies hailed the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, saying it gives them certainty about the rules they'll face as they push to cut administrative costs and reward doctors who contain health care costs by emphasizing preventive care.

Under the healthcare law, insurance companies would be required to cover the panel's recommended weight-loss treatments. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law this week. In a move that could significantly expand insurance coverage of weight-loss treatments, a federal health advisory panel on Monday recommended that all obese adults receive intensive counseling in an effort to rein in a growing health crisis in America.

U.S. consumers and businesses will receive an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates from insurance companies this year, according to a new study quantifying a key early benefit of the healthcare law that President Obama signed in 2010.

On the final day of the health care arguments, the Supreme Court justices considered a variety of possible approaches if the individual mandate is removed from the law.

President Barack Obama's health care law would not collapse if the Supreme Court strikes down the unpopular requirement that most Americans carry medical insurance or face a penalty....