Latest California Healthline Stories
One Year Later: What’s Changed Since the Obamacare Verdict
NFIB v. Sebelius was a court case years in the making. Now, one year after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act, “Road to Reform” rounds up how health care has, and hasn’t, changed since the landmark decision.
State Gearing Up for Public Education Campaign Targeting Latinos
Next month, thousands of outreach workers will hit the streets to spread the word about Covered California with a special focus on Latino communities. The state needs young, healthy people to participate in the health insurance exchange to keep costs down.
Less Hidden Information by Exchange Under New Bill
A Senate committee this week approved legislation to increase transparency at Covered California, the state’s health benefit exchange.
Spring Studies Carry Implications for Affordable Care Act
This spring found a slew of studies with important takeaways for the Affordable Care Act. Catch up with “Road to Reform” on five of the most important research offerings of the last few months.
Could This Little-Watched Court Case Sink Obamacare?
A pair of lawsuits allege that a major part of the Affordable Care Act is technically illegal. Are these suits a real threat to the ACA, or the last gasps of conservative resistance before the law’s provisions go online? Depends whom you ask.
Background Check Bill May Affect Exchange Deadline
One of two bills detailing how the state should go about hiring some 20,000 new health care reform workers is generating some controversy, which worries Covered California officials who have deadlines to meet.
Physicians Wary — or Simply Unaware — of ACA Loophole
A little-known Affordable Care Act provision could stick physicians with patients’ treatment bills. Experts warn that doctors could avoid state health insurance exchanges as a result, but perhaps even more troublesome is the number of doctors who are unaware of the loophole.
Assembly Takes Up Health Care ‘Loophole’
The Assembly this week is expected to debate a bill that would penalize large employers who reduce workers’ hours or wages in an attempt to move those employees off company-sponsored health care and into Medi-Cal coverage.
“We want to close that loophole that allows some of the largest and most profitable businesses in California to skirt their responsibility under the Affordable Care Act,” said Assembly member Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), author of AB 880.
Some large employers, he said, want to lower wages or hours of employees so those workers would earn a low-enough wage to become eligible for Medi-Cal, “dumping them onto the backs of the taxpayers,” Gomez said.
How Do California Small Business Owners Feel About ACA?
In the wake of a Gallup poll showing that almost half of the country’s small business owners predict the Affordable Care Act will be bad for business, we asked stakeholders to assess the mood in California. The new state health exchange is scheduled to announce insurers and premiums for the “SHOP” small business exchange early next month.
Low Costs and Narrow Networks: Inside Covered California
Why are some top insurers sitting out — and several top hospitals being pushed out — of the Golden State’s health insurance exchange? Here’s a look at the payers and providers that won’t be participating next year, and what their absences mean.