Steve Walsh, president of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, says the benchmarking method is "impractical" in large part because it fails to capture the present conditions in the healthcare market.
Texas, unlike all but 11 other states, hasn't expanded its Medicaid program. And it also hasn't addressed the problem that's supposed to help solve: The state's worst-in-the-nation ranking for people without health insurance.
Forces in New York City, California and elsewhere are leading a new push to rein in hospital prices, reviving a health cost fight that's been on hold for most of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Medicare Advantage is leading the U.S. government to spend billions more on seniors’ medical care than it should and needs a significant makeover, a nonpartisan watchdog said in a report to lawmakers. The program collected $12 billion in “excess payments” in 2020 over what the U.S. would have paid to cover people who used the private plans under standard Medicare, according to a report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, or MedPAC, released Tuesday.
State officials have asked Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois to prove that its central Illinois healthcare network remains adequate for meeting patients' needs, despite the loss of more than 600 Springfield Clinic doctors and other providers from its network.
