Latest California Healthline Stories
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.
Exchange Rates Make ‘Great Day For California’
Covered California, the state’s health benefit exchange, yesterday announced a rate structure for its health insurance plans that came in at a much more affordable price than first projected.
That was great news for exchange officials and it accounted for much of the pomp around that rare circumstance during yesterday’s announcement.
“This is really a great day for California,” said Diana Dooley, secretary of the state’s Health and Human Services agency and chair of the Covered California board. “We have come a long way and we have a long way to go,” she said. “We are moving to make Californians healthier and give them the financial security they need.”
Exchange Premiums Closely Watched by Industry, Nation
“Everyone will be watching what goes on in California” this week, according to health insurance industry leaders. The state’s new health insurance exchange announced which insurers will offer coverage in Covered California and how much they’ll charge.
How Obamacare Could Change Medi-Cal For the Better (and Worse)
The Affordable Care Act will help boost Medi-Cal enrollment, which could lead to positive trickle-down effects for California, but observers warn that the program is already dealing with funding and access concerns.