Health Care

Number of the Day: $456 million

By Michael Rainey

PhRMA, the lobbying group that represents the pharmaceutical industry, had a banner year in 2017, bringing in $456 million, Axios reported Tuesday. Much of the total, which represents a 69 percent...
Bernie Sanders’ New Drug Plan Sounds a Bit Like Trump’s

By Michael Rainey

A new proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) would require pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices on some drugs down to levels found in other wealthy countries — or...
Buyers Of Short-Term Health Plans: Wise Or Shortsighted?

By Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News

Supporters of the nation’s health law condemn them. A few states, including California and New York, have banned them. Other states limit them. But to some insurance brokers and consumers, short-term...
Medicare Improper Payments Fall to Lowest Since 2010

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Improper payments by Medicare in fiscal 2018 dropped to their lowest rate since 2010, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said Friday in a report flagged by Modern Healthcare . CMS...
Pfizer Says It Will Raise Prices on 41 Drugs

By Yuval Rosenberg

When drug giant Pfizer announced in July that it would roll back price hikes on its drugs, it made clear that the change was temporary . Facing intense pressure from President Donald Trump, the...

Poor Health of Workers Costs Employers an Extra $530 Billion: Report

By Yuval Rosenberg

U.S. employers spend about $880 billion on health care benefits for employees and their dependents, but poor health among workers costs them another $530 billion — or about 60 cents for every dollar...
Trump Administration Plots Costly Private-Care Expansion for Veterans

By Isaac Arnsdorf, ProPublica

Last June, President Donald Trump signed a landmark law on veterans’ health care after months of tense negotiations. At the ceremony in the Rose Garden, Trump said the bill would deliver on his...
20 Million More Americans Have Health Insurance, Compared to 2010

By The Fiscal Times Staff

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, about 48.6 million people lacked health insurance in the U.S. In the first half of 2018, 28.5 million lacked insurance – a decrease...
The Growth of Medicare Advantage

By Michael Rainey

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans – which provide more comprehensive coverage than Medicare parts A and B and are managed by private insurers – has more than tripled since 2005, according to a...
States Spent $2 Trillion in 2018. Here’s Where It Went.

By Yuval Rosenberg

The 50 states spent more than $2 trillion for the first time in fiscal 2018, according to a report released Thursday by the National Association of State Budget Officers. At the same time, as the...

$Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during an event to introduce the "Medicare for All Act of 2017\$

Can Democrats Win with Medicare for All?

By Yuval Rosenberg

Axios’ Caitlin Owens reports that most Democrats running in competitive House races this year “are supporting or at least leaving the door open to some form of ‘Medicare for All,’” — though just what...
Here's How Much Soaring Health Care Prices Have Cost American Workers

By Michael Rainey

It’s not news that health care costs have been rising for years, but a new report from Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute puts some eye-opening numbers on just how much the rising price of...
A Fiscal Hawk’s New Plan to ‘Avert a Debt Crisis’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The national debt rose by more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2018, and yet lawmakers have evinced little concern about it ahead of this year’s elections, instead pushing tax cuts and spending increases...
Average Premiums for Benchmark Obamacare Plans Will Drop in 2019

By Yuval Rosenberg

The average premium for benchmark silver plans on Obamacare exchanges will fall by 1.5 percent next year, the Trump administration said Thursday. The decline is the first for this benchmark since the...
How GOP Rhetoric on Entitlements Has Changed

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Washington Post’s David Weigel describes how Republicans have changed their tune on Medicare and, for this year at least, largely abandoned the idea of entitlement reform: “[O]ver eight years,...