Bloomberg News

Employees can receive government tax credits to buy insurance for their families if the coverage their employers offer would cost more than 9.5% of their income, the IRS said Wednesday in final regulations. However, that calculation will be based on the cost of single coverage, not family coverage, which is more expensive and would give more people access to the credits.

“Too few adults are taking advantage of protection from vaccines, leaving themselves and those around them at greater risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” says one government health expert.

Doctors are increasingly taking on more patients to compensate for cuts in payments from health insurers, researchers say, and PPACA is expected to increase the volume.

Oklahoma opposed a request by the U.S. that a judge dismiss the state’s lawsuit challenging President Obama’s 2010 health-care reform legislation.

The recommendations released today are the first to help govern the burgeoning field of brain imaging and may increase the use of the practice to improve care for the 5 million Americans affected with Alzheimer’s.

Howard County, Md., will become the first municipality to establish a nonprofit, member-run health co-op to sell individual and small group plans through the insurance exchanges — a move some say could undercut competitors by 30%.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. and other U.S. health insurers will soon have company in Maryland: a nonprofit started by a county government that plans to sell coverage at rates as much as 30% lower than competitors.

Primary care physicians should screen all females between the ages of 14 and 46 for evidence of domestic abuse, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The second-biggest U.S. health insurer’s 2013 forecast reflects “uncertainties” that include a flu outbreak, U.S. budget negotiations and implementation of President Obama’s health care overhaul.

The earnings of the largest American medical insurer met analysts’ estimates, the company reported, along with a bump in enrollment that came with a Brazilian acquisition last year.

Two of the largest U.S. drugstore chains, said they are running short of influenza vaccines as an earlier and more severe flu season drives up demand from Michigan to New Jersey.

UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. provider of medical coverage, will join the Mayo Clinic in a research alliance designed to merge insurance records and medical data to find more efficient ways to deliver care.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that influenza is widespread in 47 states, but certain regions may soon start to see fewer cases.

In a government-sponsored study this week, America ranks below its high-income, industrialized peers in both longevity and disease prevention, despite spending more per capita on health care than any other nation.

The U.S. influenza season is off to a fast start, which may hurt insurers, hospitals and people lulled by the milder outbreaks of the recent past.

Spending on hospital visits, medications and other care grew 3.9% to $2.7 trillion in 2011, matching the slowest growth in 52 years of recordkeeping, according to federal data released this week. Before the 2007 recession, growth was close to 8%.

Health-care spending in the U.S. grew at less than half the pre-recession level for the third straight year, as employers shifted more costs to strapped workers and state governments limited payouts for the poor.

Recent Yale study concludes that fructose, as opposed to glucose, has a minimal effect on telling the brain that it’s full, and may contribute the nation’s obesity epidemic.

Conditional approval from federal government allows Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah to move forward in creating state-run health insurance exchanges to comply with health care reform.

Medical insurance markets crafted by four U.S. Republican governors won conditional approval by the Obama administration as the federal government nudges states toward full implementation of the landmark health-care overhaul.