Covering health insurance in a less-populated state can be a significant challenge for journalists because most often, there’s not enough enrollment data to support robust reporting on trends that affect consumers.
Katheryn Houghton learned this lesson when working as a daily news reporter for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in Montana. In May, she left the Chronicle and now works as a freelance health care journalist in Missoula. Continue reading
Photo courtesy of David Lena and GSALA Federal Courthouse expressing civic architecture by way of association with City Hall and similar patriotic symbols incorporated into the building.
After a Los Angeles District Court judge declined to halt the current limits on freelance journalists and photographers in California, the two national organizations that filed the lawsuit are thinking about the next move — possibly an appeal to the 9th Circuit.
On March 20, Judge Philip Gutierrez denied a motion for preliminary injunction on California Assembly Bill 5, which restricts journalists to 35 submissions per publication per year as freelancers. Gutierrez also dismissed the lawsuit entirely. The two rulings came as a surprise on Friday since the next step in the case was scheduled to take place on March 23. Continue reading
Photo: Marylandstater – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons. en:Image:1city hall baltimore.jpg, Public Domain, Link
The latest in the Affordable Care Act legal battles: U.S. cities suing President Trump and top health officials at HHS for sabotage.
The suit, filed Aug. 2 by Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago and Columbus, plus two people from Charlottesville, Va., (which has some of the highest ACA insurance premiums in the country) accuses the administration of “intentionally and unconstitutionally” undermining the ACA, including by expanding non-ACA plans and discouraging enrollment. Continue reading
Photo: Ted Eytan via FlickrA sign from a 2017 rally in support of the ACA in Washington, D.C.
The latest anti-Affordable Care Act lawsuit from a score of conservative state attorneys general – partly backed by the U.S. Department of Justice – brings protections for people with pre-existing conditions squarely back into the political and policy forefront. (And you should expect this lawsuit and pre-existing condition protection to come up in the Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh in early September).
So how many people really do have pre-existing conditions who are vulnerable to losing coverage? And where are they?
Credit: Kaiser Family Foundation
UnitedHealthcare has 4.6 million Medicare Advantage members, 24 percent of the U.S. Medicare Advantage market.
A recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit claims that UnitedHealthcare concealed from federal officials hundreds of complaints of enrollment fraud and other misconduct in its Medicare Advantage program.
Brought by two UnitedHealthcare sales professionals in Wisconsin, this suit is worth watching because it is the third in recent months that whistleblowers have brought using knowledge they gained while working for Minnetonka, Minn.-based health insurance giant. Continue reading
