Healthcare reform

The U.S. government needs to offset “misinformation” about the health care law being circulated in states led by Republican governors, according to the Obama administration official responsible for implementation.

Less than two months before health exchanges open to the public, hospitals are asking to change a part of the Affordable Care Act that leaves them at financial risk for patients who fall behind on their insurance premiums.

Towers Watson has signed a web broker entity agreement with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which supervises the health insurance exchange operated by the federal government in 36 states.

Republican governors seeking to make their states enemy territory for the ACA are facing a counteroffensive. Among the vanguard: two 74-year-old retirees walking the streets of working-class New Jersey.

The subsidy should reduce the cost of the premiums by about 32% on average for people buying the second-lowest priced plans through state-by-state insurance exchanges set to open Oct. 1, the Kaiser Family Foundation said in a report today.

Oklahoma won court approval to proceed with a federal lawsuit challenging tax aspects of President Barack Obama’s health care law.

President Barack Obama urged military veterans to defend his signature health care law and press Republican lawmakers to end budget cuts that threaten future spending on benefits.

Oregon, a Democratic-led state that has embraced President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, won’t meet all the requirements for its health insurance exchange when the online marketplace opens Oct. 1.

Before heading out until September, Congress heard testimony from top CMS and IRS officials. Find out what these testimonies said about the health care reform law, now that the insurance exchanges are less than two months away from opening.

A breakdown of the potential impact seen already from the SHOP exchange delay.

Security testing for a new computer system underpinning the U.S. health care overhaul is behind schedule, leaving little margin for error to meet an Oct. 1 deadline, government auditors said.

Republican officials in Georgia, Indiana and Ohio have predicted premium increases of as much as 200% as one of the law’s chief components, online insurance marketplaces, take effect.

Shutting down the U.S. government to starve President Barack Obama’s health care system overhaul is the wrong solution pushed only by a “few extreme people” in Congress, lawmakers from both major parties said.

The first bills to threaten the navigator program were introduced last week in Congress.

Supporters and opponents of the Affordable Care Act have targeted U.S. mothers in a surge of advertising and grassroots organizing as a major piece of Obamacare readies to roll out Oct 1.

This month, Gov. Cuomo announced that health insurance plan rates that will be offered through New York’s Health Benefits Exchange have been approved. There was much made in the press about the individual market rates that will be offered in 2014 and how they are at least 50% lower than current rates. As with understanding penalties, really evaluating the exchanges takes a little deeper review of the figures.

Spurned by the National Football League, the White House is turning to a different crowd to pump up the volume on the ACA’s health insurance exchanges.

Online health insurance broker EHealth Inc. won permission from the U.S. government to enroll customers for subsidized plans offered under the federal health care law.

The top two U.S. health officials are planning multiple trips in the coming months to states led by Republicans hostile to the Affordable Care Act, seeking success there for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul despite opposition.

Even though education has long been considered key for most employee benefits programs, it’s still not easy to engage employees.