Beginning in January 2019, there is a new Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (MAOEP). You have the right to leave your Medicare Advantage plan and enroll in traditional Medicare and Medicare...
Diane Archer
What’s a Medicare Special Needs Plan?
Medicare offers commercial health insurance coverage to help people with special needs through Medicare Special Needs Plans. The commercial health plans are a type of Medicare Advantage plan, which...
Judge finds UnitedHealth illegally denied care to thousands
CNN reports that UnitedHealth was found to have illegally denied care to thousands of its members. Policymakers in Washington should take note of the risk commercial health insurers may pose to...
FDA hides data on medical device malfunctions and injuries
Before you let a doctor insert a medical device into you or someone you love, talk to the doctor about its safety. Kaiser Health News reports that scores of medical devices in frequent use may cause...
Medicare for All will help researchers develop new life-saving...
Jim Tananbaum, a former biotech executive and the founder and CEO of Forsite Capital, explains in an op-ed for StatNews why pharmaceutical companies should support Medicare for All, not fight it...
Administration proposes cutting Medicare drug coverage
A few months ago, the Trump administration proposed cutting the prescription drugs Medicare covers in order to rein in Medicare Part D spending. It argued that if insurers did not have to cover all...
Processed foods and fast foods have bigger health risks than you...
Fast foods and processed foods have bigger health risks than you might think. The problem with fast foods is the calories and amount of salt. The problem with processed foods is the nitrates...
US health care system ranks last in meeting patient’s...
A report, published in Health Affairs, analyzes 2016 survey data on patients’ experiences with the health care system in 11 countries. It finds that the US health care system ranks...
People with serious health needs more likely to disenroll from...
A new study by David Meyers, Brown University School of Public Health, et al., of people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, shows that people with high health...
Majority of Americans do not trust pharmaceutical companies to...
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll reveals how difficult it is for people taking prescription drugs to afford their medications. And, a majority of Democrats and Republicans alike support a policy...