Health Insurance, Health Care Overhaul | featured news

U.S. health officials will allow states to select the basic set of medical benefits that must be offered by insurance plans participating in new exchanges mandated by the federal healthcare overhaul, the U.S. government said on Friday.

A U.S. district judge's ruling that overthrows a key portion of President Obama's health care law conflicts with other lower-court rulings.

A federal judge today struck down part of President Obama's health law requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance.

If state challenges to the constitutionality of the insurance mandate are successful, they may have the effect of stalling the whole health care overhaul, officials say.

Health insurance industry says it won't try to block Obama's efforts to fix a potentially embarrassing glitch in new law.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is predicting that the House will pass historic health care overhaul legislation Saturday to extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and ban insurance companies from turning people away....

Top Senate Democrats intend to try to strip the health insurance industry of its exemption from federal antitrust laws, according to congressional officials. It's the latest evidence of a deepening struggle over President Barack Obama's effort to overhaul the health care industry.

If enacted, the switch would mean greater federal regulation for an industry that recently has stepped up its criticism of portions of a health care bill moving toward the Senate floor.

Their plan is estimated below Obama's $900-billion price tag. House Democrats are aiming to scale back the cost of their healthcare bill below President Obama's price tag by giving the government a strong hand in selling insurance in competition with the private market.

What was a tenuous truce between White House and industry turns quickly into an all-out battle, with both sides ratcheting up hostilities, rhetoric.

The health insurance industry doesn't want Congress to let you off easy if you decide to ignore a proposed requirement that all Americans must have coverage.