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Channel: Healthcare – Washington State Wire
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Tough Pill to Swallow: Oregon Faces a $500M Medicaid Deficit

In December 2012, the federal government agreed to give Oregon $1.9 billion over five years to support the state’s efforts to reform the way it delivers Medicaid services. Less than three years later,...

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State Health Insurance Markets Struggle with Cost Challenges

Twelve states and the District of Columbia fully control their markets. Experts estimate about half face financial difficulties. Hawaii is the third state exchange going to the federal sign-up system,...

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Health Law Experiment Failed To Show Savings

A $57 million experiment to deliver better, more efficient care at federally funded health centers struggled to meet its goals and is unlikely to save money, says a new government report. Admissions...

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Five Challenges Facing Medicaid At 50

A “sleeper” provision when Congress created Medicare in 1965 to cover health care for seniors, Medicaid now provides coverage to nearly 1 in 4 Americans, at an annual cost of more than $500 billion....

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Health Care Spending Growth Trends: Keeping An Eye On Spending Per Person

New health spending data for 2014 and spending projections over the next decade from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary were just published in Health Affairs....

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State’s Medicaid Shift to Preventive Coverage Could Help Cut Health Care Costs

Apple Health has asked for $3 billion from the federal government over the next five years to fund nontraditional services that are becoming focuses of the health care industry after the passage of the...

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Public Health in the Precision-Medicine Era

The Whitehall Studies of the British Civil Service in the United Kingdom revealed that even when health care services were provided as a matter of right and the cost of care was no longer a barrier to...

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Washington Health Benefit Exchange CEO Richard Onizuka to Step Down

Richard Onizuka, CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, says he'll step down effective Aug. 31. The Washington Health Benefit Exchange faced serious challenges in getting the website and...

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State Medicaid Pilot Project Aims at Savings

The state is asking for $3 billion as well as performance incentives to implement the five-year program, which would become permanent if the federal government approves of the changes. Officials from...

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Data Dive: How Healthy are Washington State Residents?

WA health strengths: Low prevalence of physical inactivity (3rd), Low prevalence of low birthweight (2nd), Low rate of preventable hospitalizations (6th). WA health challenges: High rate of drug deaths...

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The Union That Rules News York

How 1199 SEIU, New York’s ultra-powerful hospital and nursing home employees’ union, took over the Empire State. From these early organizing struggles, former Union President Davis left two key...

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How Denmark Dumped Medical Malpractice and Improved Patient Safety

The U.S. system for compensating injured patients — medical malpractice lawsuits — effectively shuts out patients when the potential damages are small. Denmark offers a radically different alternative,...

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Health Plan Sign-Up Deadlines Draw Near

The deadline to select a health plan through the state-based insurance exchange, Washington Healthplanfinder, is Jan. 31 for coverage effective March 1. As of Jan. 2, nearly 174,000 people across the...

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What Bernie Sanders Can Learn About Single-Payer From His Home State of Vermont

Vermont needeed $2.5 billion to build a single-payer system --- it only collects $2.7 billion in taxes annually. The proposed taxes would ask higher earners to spend more on health care than they do...

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Federal Audit Finds Problems with Washington Health Exchange

A federal audit being released Thursday found Washington's health insurance marketplace didn't always do a good job of ensuring people were enrolled according to federal requirements, but the exchange...

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Modest Changes in 2016 Health Insurance Marketplace Premiums and Insurer...

Our updated analysis of the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace health plans finds that premiums increased 6 percent nationwide for all plans and benchmark silver plans in 2016. Double-digit increases in...

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Explaining the Growth in US Health Care Spending

At least 70 percent of the recent slowdown in healthcare spending per capita—and possibly as much as 98 percent—can likely be explained by long-standing patterns known to affect healthcare spending...

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Number of Uninsured People in Washington State Cut In Half

The number of uninsured people in Washington state has been cut in half since health care reform took effect, but there are still about half a million uninsured people in the state, the insurance...

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State Notifies 91,000 Apple Health (Medicaid) Clients of Data Breach

The Washington State Health Care Authority said the information includes consumers' Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, client ID numbers and private health information. “While we have no...

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Private Health Insurance Premiums and Federal Policy

Although premiums for private insurance have grown relatively slowly in recent years, they have usually grown faster than the economy as a whole and thus faster than average income. CBO and JCT expect...

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