Policy and Legislation

Medicaid expansion is making a difference as to whether hospitals are investing in clinics, new equipment and hiring new staff, or looking at the status quo and layoffs, according to a recent report by Georgetown University Health Policy Institute.

New failures are piling up among the member-run health insurance co-ops carrying out one of the Affordable Care Act's most idealistic goals, leaving just seven remaining when the health law's fourth enrollment season starts in the fall.

Another Affordable Care Act co-op has gone under due to the federal risk adjustment mandate and four more are expected to disappear by the fall, leaving the number of working co-ops at the start of the new enrollment season at seven.

With Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt announcing to the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday that the implementation of MACRA may be delayed, physician groups are weighing in, generally agreeing that a delay would benefit smaller practices in particular.

California voters will be asked to weigh in this November on a hospital financing measure called Proposition 52 that is so politically and financially complicated that they might be tempted to avoid it altogether.

A new study by the Brookings Institution claims physicians would earn more in Medicare reimbursements under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System mandated by MACRA legislation than with the alternative payment model.

Congress should revisit creating a public healthcare plan, President Barack Obama wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has released its guidance to help healthcare organizations handle ransomware attacks, including prevention methods, a detailed description of ransomware and advice on how to respond to a ransomware threat.

The number of travel-related cases is growing, and public health officials predict it is only a matter of time until the first locally transmitted case is confirmed. They are scrambling to prepare strategies to combat Zika's spread. But on Capitol Hill, efforts to approve emergency funding to support all of these initiatives are being held up by partisan disputes.

Oregon's Health Co-op went into state receivership by court petition on Monday, according to the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, Division of Financial Regulation.