December 2016 national news

The future of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid hang in the balance Congressional leaders have confirmed that they will use the budget reconciliation process to repeal the Affordable Care Act in January, and that they will give themselves more time (perhaps two more years) to come up with a replacement plan. They are […]

July 2016 national news

Premiums rising nationwide Health insurance premiums are going up nationwide, with insurance corporations requesting to raise people’s premiums by hundreds of dollars a month in some areas. While federal law requires states to have “effective rate review programs,” there are virtually no requirements for transparency or public participation in this process, and states are left […]

February 2016 national news

Sanders campaign puts universal health care back on the national agenda Bernie Sanders’ proposal for “Medicaid for All” has put universal, publicly financed health care back on the national agenda, opening an opportunity for health care activists but generating a rain of opposition suggesting that such a proposal is too politically fraught, or falsely suggesting […]

November 30 2015

Half a million White people have “died from despair,” and Black people are affected even worse A new study has found that since the early 1990s, half a million poor and working class middle-aged White people in the United States have been killed by suicide, alcohol and drug poisoning, and alcohol-related liver disease. As The […]

November 2015

Half a million White people have “died from despair,” and Black people are affected even worse A new study has found that since the early 1990s, half a million poor and working class middle-aged White people in the United States have been killed by suicide, alcohol and drug poisoning, and alcohol-related liver disease. As The […]

August 2015

After King v. Burwell, insurance companies consolidate and premiums go up  In the weeks since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in King v. Burwell, insurance companies have responded to the court’s safeguarding of the ACA with what the New York Times called an “almost head-spinning” wave of corporate mergers. As former […]

May 2015

California considers expanding Medicaid to undocumented immigrants: The California Senate is considering a bill, the Health for All Act, that would use state funds to extend Medicaid to the state’s 1.4 million undocumented immigrants, who are currently denied access to Medicaid and the state’s health insurance exchange by the Affordable Care Act. The bill faces […]