Health Care

Would a Democratic Win in the Midterms Lead to Lower Prescription Drug Prices?

By Yuval Rosenberg

We’re 200 days away from November’s midterms, and while we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves — 200 days, after all, could also be counted as about 20 Scaramuccis in Trumpworld — Goldman...
Medicaid’s $37 Billion 'Improper Payments' Problem

By Michael Rainey

Total outlays for Medicaid reached $596 billion in the 2017 fiscal year, up from $565 billion in 2016, and the program’s vast size and complexity makes it particularly vulnerable to issuing large...
Paul Ryan's Fiscal Legacy: Lots of Red Ink

By Yuval Rosenberg

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday that he won’t seek re-election this year and will retire at the end of his term in January, becoming the most prominent in a wave of Republican lawmakers...
Yellen, Democratic Economists Say Fixing Debt Crisis Isn’t All About Entitlements

By Yuval Rosenberg

Late last month, a quintet of big-name Hoover Institution economists warned in a Washington Post op-ed that a coming “string of perpetually rising trillion-dollar-plus deficits” could soon lead to a...
How Walmart Could Fix the US Health Care System

By Christina Farr and Lauren Hirsch, CNBC

Walmart, the nation's biggest employer, is trying to redesign how U.S. health care works. It's one of the few companies that has the power to succeed. The retailer has been having early-stage talks...

California Takes On Health Giant Over High Costs

By Chad Terhune and Ana B. Ibarra, Kaiser Health News

California’s attorney general sued Sutter Health, accusing the hospital giant of illegally quashing competition and for years overcharging consumers and employers. The lawsuit marked a bold move by...
Obamacare Plans Could See Double-Digit Rate Hikes

By Michael Rainey

Congress failed to include an Obamacare stabilization package in the omnibus spending bill, and you can expect to see big price hikes for health care plans sold on the Obamacare exchanges in 2019,...
Elizabeth Warren Has New Plan to Improve Health Care – and It Isn’t Medicare for All

By Yuval Rosenberg

A recent poll found that likely voters want the Democratic Party to prioritize health care if it controls Congress and the White House in 2021. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is on it. Warren on...
White House Says Obamacare Insurers Are Raking In Healthy Profits

By Yuval Rosenberg

Health insurers are now making healthy profits in the Affordable Care Act markets, the White House Council of Economic Advisers says in a new report . “Despite significant initial financial losses in...
Drug Prices Still Rising

By Michael Rainey

Shortly before taking office, President-elect Trump famously said that drug makers were “getting away with murder” and vowed to “bring down drug prices.” But a new analysis by Pharmacy Benefits...

Congress’ Last Chance in 2018 to Stabilize ACA Markets

By Yuval Rosenberg

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have formally rolled out the text of the bipartisan Obamacare stabilization proposal they are pressing to have included in the omnibus spending...
White House Trumpets Success of Obama-Era Disease-Fighting Program It Plans to Cut

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The New York Times’ Emily Baumgaertner reports : “The National Security Council released a report on Monday trumpeting the achievements of the multinational Global Health Security Agenda, which helps...
The Old Will Outnumber the Young in the US by 2035

By The Fiscal Times Staff

By 2030, all Baby Boomers will be older than 65, meaning that one in five U.S. residents will be of retirement age, the Census Bureau reports . And by 2035, seniors will outnumber children for the...
The Real Reason US Health Care Costs So Much

By Yuval Rosenberg

An extensive new analysis of why the U.S. spends so much more on health care than other rich countries reinforces the answer other recent studies have found: It’s not that Americans get more care or...
How Insurers Are Gaming the Medicare System

By Michael Rainey

Insurance companies that operate Medicare Advantage plans can collect bonus payments from the federal government worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but only for plans that receive top ratings. In...