Policy and Legislation

Of the states that built their own health insurance exchanges that are now operational, Washington, Kentucky and Minnesota enjoyed some successes that might be replicated.

The Congressional Budget Office recently said it could no longer evaluate the fiscal implications of all of the law's provisions, leading to some concerns about the implications of a lack of independent assessment.

The U.S. Senate voted in Sylvia Matthews Burwell as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday afternoon. She is slated to officially take over for outgoing Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after a swearing in ceremony on Monday.

An Illinois home health case heard recently by the Supreme Court could reach far beyond that sector, dramatically changing the way labor unions operate across the country.

Hospitals in states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act are already bringing in fewer self-pay and charity care patient cases, according to an analysis by the Colorado Hospital Association.

Ugly stories about waiting lists and poor care in VA facilities are coming out in the press. But in truth, there is not enough information to say whether the VA system is worse or better than the private system as a whole, or even to compare the VA with individual private sector hospitals.

States' taxing of Medicaid managed care organizations to raise revenue for state-share Medicaid payments may be illegal, according to the HHS Inspector General. If so, this raises serious questions that could shake up MCO financing models.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of healthcare reform's expansion of insurance coverage to more than 13 million people this year has been the nation's safety-net hospitals. At least in the states that have chosen to accept the Medicaid expansion.

The federal government and a number of hospitals may want to transition to a new Medicare reimbursement model. But there are still billions of dollars in disputed fee-for-service claims waiting to be settled, sowing animosity between health systems and the feds.

With millions of Americans on new health insurance exchange plans now responsible for high deductibles, hospitals, drug makers, insurers and regulators are entering a new frontier of payment disputes.