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Say you bought health insurance through the federal health exchange, paid the premiums and followed the rules. And then say you start having pain in your hands. Your doctor refers you to a rheumatologist to test for arthritis. But when you search for the specialist, there isn't one there. That happens more often than you'd think. In fact, as many as 14 percent of health plans sold on the federal government's insurance exchange are missing doctors in at least one common specialty from their networks, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, by researchers at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (Kodjak, 10/27)

Some health insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act's federal marketplace may not provide reasonable access to medical specialists, new research suggests. Under the act, also known as Obamacare, the federal marketplace offers subsidized private health insurance to consumers in states that didn't establish their own health insurance exchanges. About one in seven health insurance plans offered on the federal marketplace in 2015 did not provide access to in-network doctors for at least one medical specialty, researchers found. (Seaman, 10/27)

Many health plans sold through the Affordable Care Act in 2015 are so limited they don’t offer patients access to some medical specialists such as endocrinologists, rheumatologists and psychiatrists, a new study suggests. That may be forcing some patients to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for any care provided by these specialists. (Levey, 10/27)

Hospital operator HCA Holdings Inc on Tuesday said more patients are coming through its doors who have lost their health insurance, most likely because they stopped paying for it. The largest U.S. for-profit hospital chain said it admitted more uninsured patients in the third quarter who had previously registered with health insurance, compared with a year ago. They included people who bought coverage from marketplaces set up under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, but then dropped it. (Kelly, 10/27)

The Affordable Care Act brought health insurance to 5.5 million women over the past two years, but many women still tell of unmet health care needs that could pose risks for them or future pregnancies, a new report finds. Researchers from the Urban Institute and the March of Dimes Foundation underscored the ACA’s long-term potential to improve health care for women in their child-bearing years, 18 to 44. The report was released Tuesday. (Gillespie, 10/27)