On January 14, 2019, the House Democrats developed a draft for the approaching Medicare for All bill, which will suggest a new budget model. Initially, Senator Bernie Sanders had developed the framework for the Medicare for All bill in 2017, but the new draft expands on the funding for the bill. Sanders' bill had put [...]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had announce on Thursday the second part of their 2020 Medicare Advantage Advance Notice, which will increase the Medicare Advantage rates by 1.59% in 2020. The rate hike is not as substantial as the rate hike for 2019, which is 3.4%. The first section of the 2020 [...]
A new survey released by the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index on Wednesday revealed that the number of uninsured American adults has increased from 10.9 % in 2016 to 13.7 % in 2018, which is a growth of an estimated 7 million adults uninsured. The current uninsured rate of 13.7% American adults is the [...]
On Thursday, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a proposed rule that aims to cut fees for those enrolled in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This act can potentially eliminate silver-loading within the health insurance market. The practice of silver-loading is when premiums are heavily increased onto silver-level exchange plans, which are [...]
According to an update from Thursday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Healthcare.gov enrollment numbers drop compared to enrollment numbers in 2018. The update showed that 8.4 million Americans had enrolled in a health plan for 2019, which is down 3.8% from the enrollment count last year, which is more than 8.7 [...]
In an effort to make prices transparent and easily accessible for patients, a final rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued in April is starting to take place for the New Year. The rule, slated to be taken into effect by January 1, 2019, is requiring hospitals across the country to [...]
On Friday, a federal judge from Texas had ruled that the Affordable Care Act, ACA, is unconstitutional, and has in turn caused some difficulties in Medicaid expansion. The federal judge, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor's ruling would most likely impact funding for Medicaid expansion, which provides healthcare support for adults with lower incomes. Judge O'Connor's [...]
According to the new annual report published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of the Actuary, the U.S. healthcare spending growth had decreased from 2016 to 2017. Factors that had caused the decline in healthcare spending was the reduced use of hospital care, physician services and prescription drugs. In 2017, the annual [...]
In a report to Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stated that telehealth has the potential to provide valuable care without an increase in cost. Although promising, telehealth has yet to be adopted across Medicare beneficiaries. Within 2014 to 2016, less than one percent of all Medicare beneficiaries, which is estimated to [...]
In the first two weeks of early enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a total of 1,176,232 people enrolled in a health plan for the 2019 fiscal year. Of those enrollees, 901,300 renewed their existing coverage in the marketplace, while a total count of 274,913 people were new consumers. The count of people who [...]