Health Care

Who Will Protect Medicare? GOP, Dems Duke It Out

By Yuval Rosenberg

The 2018 election may be a referendum on President Donald Trump, but it’s also turning into a battle over Medicare, at least in some key races. The Washington Post’s David Weigel reports that...
Kudlow: ‘I Don’t Buy’ That Tax Cuts Boosted Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

Larry Kudlow is at it again. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the top economic adviser to President Trump said that, while the administration is looking to cut federal spending — including...
House to Considers Billions in Cuts to Obamacare Taxes

By Michael Rainey

In addition to a package of bills that would make the individual tax cuts permanent , the House is expected to consider legislation this week that would delay or roll back multiple tax provisions in...
Arkansas Drops Thousands from Medicaid

By Michael Rainey

More than 4,000 people will lose their Medicaid coverage in Arkansas for failing to meet the state’s new work requirements. Earlier this year, the Trump administration approved the new work rules,...
‘Things Are So Much Worse’ – but Does Anyone Care About the Deficit?

By Yuval Rosenberg

As we told you yesterday , the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that the deficit for the first 11 months of fiscal 2018 totaled $895 billion, or $222 billion more than it was over the...

Pharma CEO: It's a 'Moral Requirement' to Raise Prices

By Michael Rainey

Nostrum Laboratories, a small pharmaceutical firm based in Missouri, raised the price of the antibiotic nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 a bottle last month. Here is how the CEO, Nirmal Mulye,...
Charging Almost $200 for a Bottle of Pills Worth $6

By Yuval Rosenberg

Bloomberg’s Robert Langreth, David Ingold and Jackie Gu take a fascinatingly detailed look at the “secret drug pricing system” that generates millions of dollars for pharmacy benefit managers,...
The Remedy For Surprise Medical Bills May Lie In Stitching Up Federal Law

By Michelle Andrews and Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News

When Drew Calver had a heart attack last year, his health plan paid nearly $56,000 for the 44-year-old’s four-day emergency hospital stay at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, a hospital...
Trump Says He Made Social Security, Medicare Stronger. Fact-Checker Says False.

By The Fiscal Times Staff

President Trump said this week that "Democrats want to destroy Medicare. If you look at what they’re doing, they’re going to destroy Medicare. And we will save it. We will keep it going. We’re making...
Did Soaring Health Care Costs Consume Americans’ Pay Raises?

By Michael Rainey

A hard-hitting report released this week from analysts at the insurance firm Willis Towers Watson claims that the health care system is responsible in large part for the lack of income growth...

Top Trump Health Officials Slam Obamacare, Medicare for All

By Yuval Rosenberg

In a speech Thursday morning at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar criticized the Affordable Care Act and said that the Trump administration was...
Top Trump Health Official Takes Swipes At ACA, Single-Payer in Enemy Territory

By Chad Terhune, Kaiser Health News

SAN FRANCISCO — Stepping into the land of the Trump resistance, Seema Verma flatly rejected California’s pursuit of single-payer health care as unworkable and dismissed the Affordable Care Act as too...
How Much Does Fear of Malpractice Lawsuits Drive Health Care Costs?

By Yuval Rosenberg

Doctors often complain about the costly effects of the U.S. medical malpractice system, saying that it drives them to practice “defensive medicine” — ordering extraneous tests or other services due...
Will Trump Lower Drug Prices? Most People Have Their Doubts

By Yuval Rosenberg

Relatively few Americans have heard or read about President Trump’s blueprint to lower drug prices, and many of those who do know about it think it won’t work. A new poll from Politico and the...
Medicaid Expansion Boosts Employment: Study

By Michael Rainey

People with disabilities are more likely to be employed in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health...