Insurance

Latest California Healthline Stories

Health Care Coalition Jockeys Over Medi-Cal Spending, Eyes Ballot Initiative

California Healthline has learned that a coalition of doctors, hospitals, insurers, and community clinics want to lock in a tax on health insurance companies to draw in extra Medicaid funding. It also wants to make the tax permanent.

Newsom and Democratic Lawmakers at Odds Over Billions in Health Care Funds

Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting pressure from his political allies to begin spending money on health care that the state raised by fining Californians who go without health insurance. But Newsom says the state can’t afford to.

Denials of Health Insurance Claims Are Rising — And Getting Weirder

The Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with monitoring denials both by Obamacare health plans and those offered through employers and insurers. As insurers’ denials become more common, they sometimes defy not just medical standards of care but sheer logic. Why hasn’t the agency fulfilled its assignment?

He Returned to the US for His Daughter’s Wedding. He Left With a $42,000 Hospital Bill.

After emergency surgery, an American expatriate with Swiss insurance now carries the baggage of a five-figure bill. Costs for medical care in the U.S. can be two to three times the rates in other developed countries, so foreigners and expats with good insurance in their home countries need travel insurance to protect themselves from “crazy prices.”

A Covid Test Medicare Scam May Be a Trial Run for Further Fraud

Before the covid-19 public health emergency ended, Medicare advocates around the country noticed a rise in complaints from beneficiaries who received at-home covid tests they never requested. Bad actors may have used seniors’ Medicare information to improperly bill the federal government — and could do it again, say federal investigators.