For several years now, medical authorities, business leaders and faith leaders — along with newspaper editorial writers — have encouraged the state legislature to institute Medicaid expansion. This would provide medical coverage for North Carolinians who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to qualify for a subsidy on the health-insurance marketplace, aka via the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
HHS has proposed modifying patient privacy rules to remove barriers to coordinated care. The AMA says the proposal is "well-intentioned" but ill-timed and incomplete, having the potential to whittle away protections designed to secure private health information.
Florida continues to lead the nation in the number of new people enrolling in Obamacare health plans during a special enrollment period that began earlier this year, according to data released Wednesday by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In all, 1.5 million people in 36 states that use a federal health insurance exchange enrolled in plans available under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, between Feb. 15 and June 30.
HealthPartners UnityPoint Health will offer insurance plans for small businesses, further expanding its reach into the employer-based market. The West Des Moines-based company said Monday it will begin offering health insurance plans to businesses and organizations with fewer than 50 employees for coverage starting in 2022. These plans will only be available in 38 counties statewide that include Iowa’s biggest metro areas, such as Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Waterloo. These areas are also home to 80 percent of Iowans who enroll for insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act marketplace, HealthPartners UnityPoint Health President Becky Woody said.
Medicare officials are beginning a review of Biogen Inc.’s new Alzheimer’s drug to decide whether to standardize coverage of the medicine nationally, a widely-anticipated step that would allow the government to place limits on who can receive the medicine. The review of Biogen’s drug, called Aduhelm, will include an analysis of published clinical studies and medical society guidelines, as well as two public hearings later this month to assess the therapy’s benefits, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Monday.