Medicare

Latest California Healthline Stories

Longtime Head of L.A. Care To Retire After Navigating Major Medi-Cal Changes

John Baackes, who steered Medi-Cal’s largest health plan following the Affordable Care Act expansion, and later prepared it for a state overhaul of Medi-Cal, will retire after this year. Baackes believes low payments to doctors and other providers, along with an acute labor shortage, hamper Medi-Cal’s success.

With TV Drug Ads, What You See Is Not Necessarily What You Get

The pharmaceutical industry has invented a new art form: finding ways to make their wares seem like joyous must-have treatments, while often minimizing lackluster efficacy and risks.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Let the General Election Commence

Abortion and reproductive health issues headlined the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as expected. But what Vice President Kamala Harris has in mind for other health policies as the Democratic nominee remains something of a mystery. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump says he would not use the 19th-century Comstock Act to impose, in effect, a national ban on abortion, which angered his anti-abortion backers. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Joanne Kenen of Politico and Johns Hopkins University, and Shefali Luthra of The 19th join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews KFF Health News’ Tony Leys, who reported and wrote the latest KFF Health News-NPR “Bill of the Month” feature about a woman who fought back after being charged for two surgeries despite undergoing only one.

Biden Administration Blocks Two Private Sector Enrollment Sites From ACA Marketplace

Regulators have been under the gun to curb unauthorized Obamacare enrollment and switching of plans. Separately, a pending lawsuit was amended with additional defendants and new allegations regarding tactics to garner greater ACA sales commissions.

Bipartisan Effort Paves Way for Reviving Shuttered Hospitals in Georgia

“Certificate of need” laws, largely supported by the hospital industry, limit health facility construction in 35 states and Washington, D.C. Georgia lawmakers decided its law was complicating the reviving of two hospitals critical to their communities.