State health insurance regulators rejected a pair of proposed hefty premium increases from major insurers and allowed six other carriers to increase rates by 7% or more, albeit at lower levels than originally sought. The Division of Insurance on Monday published final 2026 rates for the merged market, which provides hundreds of thousands of Bay Staters with health insurance through individual or small business plans.
A federal appeals court has overturned a judge's unusual decision to acquit a Maryland doctor whom a jury found guilty in a $15 million health care fraud case involving COVID-19 tests, but upheld a ruling to grant him a new trial. Dr. Ron Elfenbein was convicted in 2023 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore of five counts of healthcare fraud. Federal prosecutors alleged that Elfenbein, 51, billed Medicare too much for visits that only lasted a few minutes and submitted records detailing medical services that his clinic did not provide.
Lawyers for the accused United Healthcare CEO killer, Luigi Mangione, are up in arms over what they say were 'secret' communications between his New York prosecutors and Aetna, his former health insurer. They say prosecutors sent Aetna an 'unlawful,' back-channel subpoena seeking his confidential insurance account number and the time period for his coverage — and that in response, Aetna mistakenly sent prosecutors Mangione's entire, 120-page insurance record.
President Trump's major domestic policy law will result in nearly 10 million more people going without health insurance by 2034, according to the CBO'ss estimate on the final law. The law, which included significant cuts in federal health spending, is expected to add about $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
Private health insurers in the U.S. have increased prescription drug coverage rejections by 25% from 2016 to 2023, according to an analysis by Komodo Health. The analysis of over 4 billion claims found that insurers are denying more medical claims, highlighting a trend of increasing insurance denials in the U.S. healthcare system.
Hospitals are steadily buying small physician practices and, in the process, driving up the price of care, a new National Bureau of Economic Research study shows. It's the latest evidence of consolidation in health care that's left more than three-quarters of U.S. doctors employed by health systems or corporations. The pace has quickened in recent years, driven by factors like declining reimbursements for some specialties and expenses like electronic health record systems that have left small independent practices struggling. But that's brought a decline in competition that raises antitrust concerns.