
Joseph Burns is AHCJ’s health beat leader on health policy and insurance. He’s an independent journalist based in Brewster, Mass., who has covered health care, health policy and the business of care since 1991. Burns has written for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Fortune, Hospitals & Health Networks, and Medical Economics, among others. Early in his journalism career, Burns worked as a reporter in Connecticut, first for The Wallingford Post (a weekly), and then The Meriden Record-Journal (a daily), and later for The Hartford Courant (the largest daily newspaper in the state and the nation’s oldest newspaper). For The Courant, he was a reporter, copy editor and regional news editor. During this time, he also taught news writing at the University of Connecticut.
When drafting the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Congress wanted to foster competition among health insurers. So it offered loans…
The uninsured rate among all Americans in the first quarter of this year dropped to 9.2 percent, according to the…
One local story to follow when any health insurer considers acquiring another is how the new entity could affect competition.…
Earlier this month, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed a five-year bundled-payment test program for hip and…
One important question to ask about any health insurance merger is how will the deal will affect the local market.…
Announcements from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services last week on rules about bundled payments for hip and knee…
Over the past two years, patient advocacy groups, researchers and consultants have said health insurers have discriminated against their members…
Indiana is embarking a new way to deliver mental health care to Medicaid members. John Wernert, M.D., a psychiatrist who…
Any health insurance company that seeks to buy another insurer will have some tough questions to answer. So, after Aetna…
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Any health care journalist covering the business side of physician practices knows that doctors in private practice often struggle. Health…