The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
Sarah Varney was a senior correspondent for Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News until August 2023.
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There was a party atmosphere at Affordable Care Act events in California, where the law has been embraced, and in Virginia, where it has been resisted. But consumers will have very different experiences in the two states.
Survey of 2,000 Californians also finds that many undocumented immigrants mistakenly believe they will be covered.
California's mild climate means that farm work is a year-round business, and come 2015, the Affordable Care Act will require farm labor contractors to offer health insurance to field workers for the first time.
In more than two dozen states, obesity treatments
On Thursday, the state cleared 13 health plans to offer insurance in its Obamacare online marketplace - at prices that are lower than expected.
Health providers and patients in Brownsville make do with one of the nation's highest uninsured rates. With billions in federal funding on the line, Texas counties along the border with Mexico plead their case to Gov. Rick Perry.
One in five households in the United States has only a tenuous relationship with a traditional bank, and many of these people are also uninsured. It's still an open question how the unbanked will buy insurance on the exchanges.
Can for-profit health insurance companies be trusted to take care of the vulnerable, expensive patients who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid? In Arizona, a state that has been known to resist federal health programs, private companies have been doing just that for many years.
President Obama's actions and proposals on reducing gun violence include efforts to address the nation's fragmented and porous mental health system. Mental health advocates are buoyed by the attention given to an issue they say has been ignored for far too long.
The storefront doctor's offices serve a vast number of uninsured Latino residents, in a kind of parallel, cash-only health system. But officials have little information on the quality of health care the clinicas provide, and whether they might be able to help fill persistent and profound gaps in Los Angeles' strained safety net.
An effort in California to move Medicaid patients into managed care has national significance as federal officials roll out a similar but larger program for as many as 2 million people who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare.
More than any other state, California has wagered heavily on the Affordable Care Act. If a Romney administration follows through with its vow to undo the health law, the state's early expansion of Medicaid, its online insurance marketplace and other reforms will have an uncertain future.
The Reagan Democrats of the 1980s are older and and many are on Medicare, a program that the GOP wants to alter dramatically. Do they still hold true to the Gipper's smaller government ethos, even if it might mean big changes to the program for seniors and the disabled?
Every day, at least 10,000 people turn 65 and most become eligible for Medicare. That can raise lots of questions: for those still working, should they enroll or keep their company's health plan? If they retire, how does that affect spouses and children?
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