News Clips

Nearly 2,000 employers and unions have been approved to seek federal reimbursement for the health claims of their "early retirees," or retired workers aged 55 or older who are too young to get Medicare, Obama administration officials announced Tuesday.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who swung through Portland last week, talked with The Oregonian about the federal effort to redesign the health insurance market and expand coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
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Many plans refuse to cover such care. The new health care law will change that beginning in 2014.
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Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.
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A growing number of the unemployed are exhausting their extended COBRA health insurance subsidies, eligibility for which expired at the end of May. There’s a slim chance that Congress could extend the 65%, 15-month subsidy again this fall, but most experts think it’s unlikely due to mounting concerns about federal spending.
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Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort.
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Increasingly, the doctor is not in when it comes to delivering primary care. But the nurse practitioner or physician assistant is often taking the doctor’s place.
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After Russ Hillard developed Huntington’s disease, a devastating neurological disorder, he lost his $35,000-a-year job as a welder and, with it, his health insurance.
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Imagine a place where your doctor doesn’t keep you waiting, does keep you healthy, and works with a whole team of other health care professionals. Oh, and imagine that place makes the doctor’s life easier and health care cheaper.
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Conventional wisdom is that the age-old model of a single doctor serving patients out of a small office is rapidly going extinct. Doctors need to evolve or die. That means fancy new computerized medical systems and bigger groups to handle the overhead.
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A DJ spun tunes on a hot summer Saturday as Shamika Haywood got her blood pressure checked in a booth at the Grace Hill Water Tower Health Center for the annual health fair. Haywood, who started using Grace Hill’s facilities 15 years ago, also brought her two children for free back-to-school physicals.
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When Richard Crusoe was diagnosed with a rare form of soft tissue cancer called liposarcoma, the retired firefighter and his family pinned their hopes of slowing the cancer’s advance on a drug that was being tested in a clinical trial.
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Consumer advocates and doctors are praising reforms that force health insurers to direct more dollars to actual medical care and less to profits and executive bonuses.
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Poverty and mental illness walk closer together during tough economic times. In the past year, the Social Welfare Board saw an increasing number of patrons needing mental health services.
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Homeless and unemployed, Tianne Hill said she dreads getting mail at the city shelter on Guilford Avenue where she lives because it often includes medical bills she can’t pay.
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Ruth Titus, a 59-year-old cook from Taos, N.M., leaped at the opportunity in July to sign up for health insurance under a new federally subsidized program for uninsured people with health problems.
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Jennifer Richards of Park Ridge, Ill., is angry that her family’s monthly health insurance bill tripled in August to $1,250 after her husband lost his job and health benefits.
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Health centers across the country are lining up for a shot in the arm from the Obama administration: $250 million in federal grants to build clinics and bolster services at existing clinics for low-income patients.
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Starting this year, Apelian Carpets and Orientals will be among millions of small businesses across the country eligible for a tax credit of up to 35 percent of the cost of plans. When he files his taxes next year, the credit should mitigate the impact of his premiums.
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Millions of Americans who live in rural areas travel long distances to get health care. Or they may go without it. But high-speed Internet connections now make it possible to bring a doctor’s expertise to patients in far-off places, if those places are connected.
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HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the award of $1 million to Missouri to help crack down on health insurance premium increases.
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The grants announced Monday are the first round of a $250 million, five-year program included in the new health care overhaul law intended to build states’ capacity to rein in premium increases that have reached as high as 30 percent per year in some cases, and doubled on average over the past 10 years.
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About 65 million Americans live in communities with a shortage of primary care doctors, physicians trained to meet the majority of patients’ health care needs over the course of their lives.
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Faced with the need to review insurance rates and enforce a panoply of new rights granted to consumers, states are scrambling to make sure they have the necessary legal authority to carry out the responsibilities being placed on them by President Obama’s health care law.
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Finding a health plan for college-age children isn’t something parents have had to think much about. Most decide to keep their children on their employer’s plan, which is typically more comprehensive than coverage offered through the school or in the market for individual policies. But many health plans limit coverage of college-age children for a variety of reasons, including age, whether they live at home and whether they are financially dependent.
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When James Howard was diagnosed with brain cancer in March he did not know how he would pay for radiation treatments costing $87,000 and $2,300 a week for chemotherapy.
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Restaurant workers are typically young. They typically work part time. And they typically can’t afford health insurance. Yet the nation’s cooks, servers and dishwashers recently found themselves being courted by some of the nation’s biggest health insurers.
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The new health overhaul law aims to end all annual dollar limits on health insurance policies by 2014. Federal regulators contend such limits can leave policyholders "virtually uninsured" for the rest of the year once caps are hit.
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The Obama administration is planning to upgrade consumer protections for tens of millions of workers and family members covered by health, disability and pension plans, ordering companies to clearly explain decisions on claims and how employees can dispute denials.
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Six weeks before the nation’s health care delivery system begins a huge transformation, confusion reigns.
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As Americans struggle with double-digit hikes in their health insurance bills, millions are coming up against a hard reality: The state regulators who are supposed to protect them can often do little to control what insurers are charging.
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Missouri is set to receive $209.3 million in health care financing and $189 million for education during the next year.
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Preventive health care is important at any age, but never more so than as we get older.
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A new early intervention program, financed with $88 million in federal health reform money, has the potential of breaking the poverty cycle that afflicts generation after generation of at-risk families.
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As Americans struggle with double-digit hikes in their health insurance bills, millions are coming up against a hard reality: the state regulators who are supposed to protect them can often do little to control what insurers are charging.
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The U.S. Senate Thursday approved a $26 billion plan to save the jobs of thousands of teachers across the country and help state Medicaid programs.
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Missouri could get up to $400 million in federal aid for Medicaid and schools.
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Striking a largely symbolic blow at President Obama’s health care overhaul, Missouri voters approved a ballot measure Tuesday challenging the new law’s requirement that Americans buy health insurance starting in 2014.
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When President Obama signed the health care overhaul bill in March, responsibility fell to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to implement the new law.
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Consumers and policy makers will be crossing treacherous terrain as they make the transition to a new health care system in the next three and a half years.
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Health care reform hits another milestone next month, with new provisions that include a coverage expansion for young adults and restrictions on an insurer’s ability to impose annual coverage limits or to reject children with pre-existing medical conditions.
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The federal government announced Thursday that it was extending through 2014 an unusual program that has provided about $25 million a year for funding area community health centers.
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Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.
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New census data released Tuesday confirm a huge spread in the rate of uninsured from state to state and the big difference in impact that can be expected as a result of the health care overhaul recently passed by Congress.
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Missouri children gained slight ground in a national study ranking the quality of life of kids in all 50 states. The Annie E. Casey Foundation released on Tuesday its 2010 Kids Count, an annual analysis of child welfare statistics around the nation. Missouri ranked 31st among all states, an improvement from last year’s 33rd spot.
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Among the most important questions involving the health care overhaul are how seniors will be affected. Here are two of the biggest pocketbook issues.
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Technology that aims to keep congestive heart failure patients out of the hospital is gaining traction.
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It began with a toothache. Tori Pence, 23, could feel the hole that had suddenly developed on her tooth, and she couldn’t stand either hot or cold food. The bespectacled girl with electric-blue hair had worked a string of odd jobs and hadn’t seen a dentist for at least five years. When she finally got in to see one, she needed a root canal. And fillings for 15 cavities.
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Richard Glynn feels like a time bomb is ticking away in his mouth. Medical records show the 49-year-old South Daytona resident has 24 teeth that need to be extracted because of periodontal disease and an infection so painful it keeps him up at night, he says.
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Some major health insurance companies have stopped issuing certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.
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The legislative battle over the health care overhaul ended months ago, but it is hard to tell from the intense effort now under way by insurance companies to retool a critical provision.
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The majority of small businesses in Missouri would qualify for health insurance tax credits this year, according to a report issued Thursday.
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Missouri voters have a chance on Aug. 3 to weigh in on the hottest political topic of the year: the new federal health care law narrowly passed by Congress in March.
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Although Congress this week approved an extension of unemployment insurance benefits, two health-related proposals initially linked to the measure – extensions of COBRA subsidies for unemployed workers and enhanced federal Medicaid contributions for states — have stalled. Here’s an update on where they stand.
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The Obama administration took the first step Thursday to guarantee that consumers can appeal to a neutral referee if their health insurance company denies a medical claim.
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For many Americans, few experiences with the health care system are more frustrating than a rejected claim from an insurance plan. Rejection notices are often unclear, as are the procedures for challenging them.
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Non-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans stockpiled billions of dollars during the past decade, yet continued to hit consumers with double-digit premium increases, Consumers Union found in an analysis of 10 of the plans’ finances.
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The regulations guarantee consumers the right to appeal denials - directly to their insurers and then, if necessary, to external review boards.
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For decades, mental health advocates have fought to get health insurance "equal rights" for patients with mental illnesses or brain disorders.
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As states face severe budget shortfalls, many have cut home-care services for the elderly or the disabled, programs that have been shown to save states money in the long run because they keep people out of nursing homes.
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In the middle of a medical emergency, you don’t have time to wonder whether the doctor who is reading your X-rays is in your insurance network. Starting this fall, changes under the health care overhaul will take some of the worry out of emergency room visits
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Venante Kotey is a stay-at-home mother in Dumfries. Bridget Hamilton-Roberts is a nurse more than 500 miles away in Atlanta. They’ve never met. But over the past year and a half, Hamilton-Roberts has become critical to Kotey’s health -- all through conversations over the telephone.
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As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ HealthCare.gov makes it easy to learn about all your personal health insurance options
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Despite many seniors expecting change in Medicare because of health care reform, most won’t see any, U.S. researchers said.
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The U.S Department of Health and Human Services gave final approval yesterday to Missouri’s new high risk insurance pool. The decision means a new coverage option is now available for Missourians with pre-existing conditions.
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Clarifying a much-anticipated benefit in the health care law, the Obama administration on Wednesday issued rules outlining how millions of consumers will soon be able to get many preventive medical services at no out-of-pocket cost.
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The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care.
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About 85,100 small businesses in Missouri are eligible to receive a federal tax credit this year if they purchase health insurance for their workers, a study of the new health overhaul has concluded.
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Several lesser-known provisions take effect in coming months that could have a lasting impact on the nation’s health care system.
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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has approved $81 million for Missouri’s high-risk health insurance pool.
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One of the most controversial issues related to health insurance has been rescission, which is action taken by insurers to retroactively cancel a customer’s coverage even if a policy is kept current, citing omissions or errors in the application as grounds for breaking the contract.
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Consumer advocates are pushing for tough rules on how much information insurers must provide to justify premium increases, a step required by the new health overhaul law.
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The federal health care reform law passed in March by Congress will have an 81-million dollar impact on sick Missourians, starting this month. Missourians with preexisting conditions who cannot get regular health insurance will be able to get it through a state insurance pool.
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The first stage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul is expected to provide coverage to about 1 million uninsured Americans by next year, according to government estimates. That’s a small share of the uninsured, but in a shaky economy, experts say it’s notable.
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When it comes to understanding medical information, even the most sophisticated patient may not be smarter than a fifth grader.
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The federal government has started a new website aimed at taking the guesswork out of finding a health care plan.
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Democrats left Washington for the July 4 recess without passing key parts of their health care agenda.
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A Web site that the Obama administration unveiled Wednesday aims to give everyone the full range of public and private health insurance plans available to them based on their individual circumstances.
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Americans who have been denied coverage because of a preexisting medical condition may begin applying Thursday under the new program.
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Prices will vary by state and type of coverage from a low of $140 a month to as much as $900, said Richard Popper, deputy director of a new insurance office at the federal Health and Human Services department. Officials provided details of the plan, which starts enrolling people Thursday.
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Medicare, Medicaid, HMO, PPO, insurance premiums - let’s face it: health care has always been confusing, and now reform laws have changed the game. Some went back to school to understand the new rules.
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When Bill Rose broke his leg in a motorcycle accident, he knew he’d end up paying for surgery himself - he was temporarily uninsured. So he asked the hospital for an estimate and negotiated a 30 percent discount, bringing the price down to $8,260 in exchange for paying up front.
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The Obama administration is launching a special coverage program for uninsured Americans with medical problems this week, the most ambitious early investment of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
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Fewer than a third of employers that offer health insurance make it available to their part-time workers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And even if health insurance benefits are offered, part-timers, who often work in lower-paid retail, restaurant and service jobs, may not be able to afford them.
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For at least 30 cash-strapped states counting on federal stimulus money, the news was a stunning blow: A deficit-weary Congress had rejected billions in additional aid, forcing lawmakers into a mad scramble to balance their budgets.
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It is among the top early selling points of the health care overhaul - a new rule that has particular appeal for middle-class, middle-age voters: Young adults who lack health insurance will soon be able to remain on their parents’ plans until age 26.
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If you have any kind of chronic medical condition and you’ve been shopping for health insurance, you know how insanely difficult it is to find an insurer that will cover you at all, let alone at an affordable rate.
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The collapse of the wide-ranging legislation means that a total of 1.3 million unemployed Americans will have lost their assistance by the end of this week. It will also leave a number of states with large budget holes they had expected to fill with federal cash to help with Medicaid costs.
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Doctors would be temporarily spared a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments under a bill passed by Congress on Thursday. The measure would delay the cuts six months while lawmakers work on a more permanent solution. The bill now goes to President Obama for his signature.
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One of the first provisions of the federal health care overhaul — allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26 — is expected to make a big dent in the number of uninsured young people this year.
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Already-strapped states are about to face a new squeeze as the boost from federal economic-stimulus spending draws to a close and Washington looks increasingly reluctant to widen the nation’s budget deficit.
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President Obama met with the chief executives of more than a dozen major insurance companies at the White House on Tuesday to caution them against using new requirements in the recently enacted health care reform legislation as a pretext to substantially raise premiums.
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The Obama administration issued a series of proposed regulations Tuesday that would provide interim protections for Americans until the health care insurance market is more fully overhauled in 2014.
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People who buy their own health insurance have been hit lately with premium hikes that far exceed increases in the premiums for employer-sponsored coverage, according to a new survey from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
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As he trumpeted what he called a new "Patient’s Bill of Rights" Tuesday, President Barack Obama tried to calm fears that the new health law would increase insurance costs.
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Wish finding health insurance were as easy as shopping for an airline ticket? A federal government website that starts July 1 takes a step in that direction. The site, for the first time, will give consumers a list of all private and government health care plans for individuals and small businesses in their areas.
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President Obama plans to sternly warn industry executives at a White House meeting on Tuesday against imposing hefty rate increases in anticipation of tightening regulation under the new law, administration officials said Monday.
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High-deductible health plans and the health savings accounts (HSAs) that link to them are becoming a familiar fixture on the insurance landscape, even though they get mixed reviews from many consumers and health-policy experts.
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With Congress increasingly reluctant to add to the nation’s debt, financial help is hard to find for state governments and individual casualties of the recession.
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Fighting with a health plan over a denied claim can leave people feeling they’ve been injured all over again.
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When Mariah Thomas, a returning Shawnee Mission Primary Care patient, booked an appointment for back pain recently, she expected a long wait and a tall stack of forms. Neither occurred.

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Mary K. Wakefield, 55, is the administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency oversees community health centers across the nation and programs that bring health care to the uninsured.
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Despite passage of the landmark health care overhaul this spring, the nation’s health system is continuing to fray, raising the prospect that the country could experience a crisis before the law establishes a health care safety net in 2014.
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To provide coverage for millions of uninsured Americans of all ages, the law calls for squeezing Medicare to come up with more than half the $938 billion estimated cost of the new national health plan. Paring down Medicare is also necessary to keep the massive and financially troubled program afloat for the long haul.
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Public school transportation, college scholarships and state workers took most of the hits in today’s $301 million in budget cuts announced today by Gov. Jay Nixon. About 250 state jobs are to be eliminated, on top of 2,200 jobs cut in earlier budgets. S
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Thomas McAuliffe of the Missouri Foundation for Health is trying to bring clarity to the confusion surrounding federal health care reform.
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The Senate on Thursday rejected long-sought legislation to provide stimulus spending and a reprieve for doctors about to get hit with a big cut in their Medicare payments.
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The federal government formally responded to the most serious legal challenge to the health care overhaul, invoking its powers under the Constitution to regulate interstate commerce and impose taxes.
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State insurance officials say they fear that health insurance companies will cancel policies and leave the individual insurance market in some states because of a provision of the new health care law that requires insurers to spend more of each premium dollar for the benefit of consumers.
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If you like your health plan, you can keep it. That’s what President Obama promised during the long months of debate over health care reform.
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The Obama administration had a message Monday for employers who want to keep federal bureaucrats from rewriting the rules for their company medical plans: Don’t jack up costs for workers, and you won’t have to worry about interference from the new health care law.
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The White House on Monday will issue new rules that strongly discourage employers from cutting health insurance benefits or increasing the costs of coverage to employees, administration officials say.
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Millions of cancer survivors have put off getting medical care because they couldn’t afford it, according to a new study.


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Companies that offer employee health insurance expect another steep jump in medical costs next year, and more will ask workers to share a bigger chunk of the expense, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report.
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For several months, the Prescriptions blog at nytimes.com/health has been fielding readers’ questions about how the new health care law will affect them. Here are three recent ones, starting with a popular subject: health insurance exchanges.
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The state of Missouri has taken a huge step in helping parents of autistic children pay for therapy.
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The changes coming in Medicare should help Marilyn McBride hang on to her retirement savings. But they could end up costing Jo Louis.
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Although most of the new law’s big changes do not take effect until 2014, there are some provisions employers must comply with by next year.
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It was the last of many important days for families with children dealing with autism, as legislation to force insurance companies to provide coverage for autism treatment was finally signed into law.
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Officials with the Missouri Department of Mental Health are bracing for more budget cuts.
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Some business owners in Poplar Bluff say federal health care reform leaves them with more questions than answers.
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In addition to remarks aimed at older Americans in the prescription ’doughnut hole,’ the president announces a crackdown on Medicare waste, fraud and abuse to recover billions of dollars.
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By the time women reach 44 years old, roughly 85 percent have given birth. Yet even though pregnancy and childbirth are such commonplace events, health insurance coverage and support services to keep mothers and babies healthy are often seriously deficient.
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Having counted on Washington for money that may not be delivered, at least 30 states will have to close larger-than-anticipated shortfalls in the coming fiscal year unless Congress passes a six-month extension of increased federal spending on Medicaid.
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Seven-year-old Alex Rowe, who has a rare bleeding disorder, soon will have private health insurance again. He is among more than 5 million Americans under the age of 19 with a pre-existing medical condition who cannot be denied coverage by insurance companies beginning as early as September under a key provision of the health care reform law.
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More medical care won’t necessarily make you healthier — it may make you sicker. It’s an idea that technology-loving Americans find hard to believe.
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Howard Kornblum has been watching every penny for the past 15 months and it’s about to get worse.
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So when the label on your prescription bottle says to “take two tablets by mouth twice daily,” how many pills should you be taking each day? It’s not supposed to be a trick question.

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The law will extend health insurance to 32 million currently uninsured Americans by 2019, and will also have an impact on how nearly every American buys insurance and what insurance must cover. Here’s how you might be affected.
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A national assembly of state insurance regulators, which is helping the federal government translate the law into more specific rules, said it was unable to meet a Tuesday deadline for standards meant to ensure that consumers get value for their premium dollars.
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Amid a flurry of publicity, dozens of the nation’s insurers announced this spring that they would put into effect a popular provision of the new health law ahead of schedule.
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If you own a small business and are struggling to pay for employees’ health insurance, the new health care law could provide quick financial help.
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In the wake of sweeping health care reform legislation approved this spring, many small business owners are confused and concerned about how they will be affected.
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Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said Thursday that employers should immediately offer or continue health insurance coverage for workers’ children up to the age of 26, at little or no additional cost.
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The federal government will bear virtually the entire cost of expanding Medicaid under the new health care law, according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that rebuts governors’ protests about the impact on strapped states.
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The $250 checks for Medicare recipients who fall into the prescription drug coverage gap are a new benefit this year, a modest down payment on gradually closing the "doughnut hole" over the next decade.
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In a timely addition to Missouri’s debate over the new health reform law, a new Kaiser Family Foundation study projects a sharp rise in the number of Missourians eligible for Medicaid under the new law, with the federal government picking up a large share of the cost of covering them.
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By the time Congress passed the national health care overhaul, anxiety about it was so widespread that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a statement reassuring military families.
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After Eric Heininger left his job (and medical insurance) to follow his girlfriend to graduate school in New Haven, he wanted to get a physical, so he volunteered to take part in a medical study.
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A federal law that President Obama signed early last year to expand health insurance to 4 million more low-income children has gotten off to a slow start because of budget problems in the states.
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Now that Congress has imposed new requirements on health insurance plans, regulators are trying to resolve another big question: Which plans must comply with the requirements?
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Many employers expect to see a slight increase in costs as they work to implement U.S. health care reforms for 2011.
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Ever since Thomas DeLorenzo was accepted to three law schools outside his home state of California, he has spent entire days on the phone with health insurers in other states, compiling information that he enters on a giant spreadsheet.
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If you’re sick - or have ever been sick - and can’t get insurance, the new health-care law promises fast relief: access to guaranteed coverage through a special federally funded insurance program starting in July.
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As many as 4 million small businesses might be eligible for federal tax credits to help cover the cost of health insurance for their workers, administration officials said Monday, one of the first benefits to flow from the recently enacted health-care overhaul.
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"This year, we really had to cut into the meat of our budget," says Ruth Ehresman, director of health and budget policy for the Missouri Budget Project.
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Missouri is poised to become the 20th state to require insurers to cover treatment for autism under a bill the Legislature passed and sent to Gov. Jay Nixon on Wednesday.
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Legislation that began by dealing with the dissolution of insurance companies has morphed into a statewide referendum on the federal health care overhaul.
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The Missouri Senate approved a bill Thursday that would require health insurance providers to cover treatment for autism spectrum disorders. But the measure still faces one vote in the House for final approval.
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The state Senate approved legislation Tuesday that could give Missouri residents a chance to vote on the federal health insurance mandate.
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Trying to entice employers to keep early retirees on their medical plans, the Obama administration announced Tuesday it was making $5 billion available until the safety net of the new health care law was in place.

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Missouri will get $81 million in federal money to set up an affordable health insurance pool for residents with pre-existing conditions and without coverage for at least six months.
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After being criticized as obstructionists during the long health-care debate, insurance companies now are implementing some popular provisions even sooner than the law demands.
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A health care policy expert said health care reform will create winners and losers, and some people will be in both columns.
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The federal health insurance law could transform care in Missouri in the long run, a public health expert in Missouri said Wednesday.
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The legislature is far beyond the point where it’s easy to make budget cuts. For the state Department of Mental Health, it means making significant changes to the way it delivers services in Missouri.
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“We’re always getting some kind of scam,” said Darrell Elliott, a Medicare fraud specialist with the Kansas Department on Aging. “Now we’re getting ones related to health reform.”

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The Missouri Senate advanced a bill Monday that would reduce in-home services for those on the state Medicaid program due to the objections of some senators who said it would cut benefits without saving money.
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The young mother who becomes paraplegic after a wreck. The soldier who returns home with a severe head injury. The middle-aged woman with early dementia. They, like millions of Americans, need long-term health care.


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When federal officials asked Missouri to look at recent premium rate increases by WellPoint-owned health plans, including Anthem, the state had a ready answer: Missouri doesn’t get information about increased charges s because it has no authority over health-insurance rates.
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Missouri is rushing to meet one of the first major tests of the new federal health-reform law by setting up a high-risk insurance pool for people denied affordable health coverage because of pre-existing conditions, such as cancer, diabetes and heart ailments.
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The ink was hardly dry on the health-care overhaul law when foundations, industry groups and consumer advocates began putting together guides to the new rules. Here are some Web sites worth keeping an eye on.
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Consumers and employers who provide health insurance are scrambling to understand what will change in their premiums and benefits once provisions of the recently passed law go into effect.
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Amid all the rancor leading up to passage of the new health care law, Congress with little fanfare approved a set of wide-ranging public initiatives to prevent disease and encourage healthy behavior.
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Changing rules on flexible spending accounts mean that starting next year, you can use money from an FSA account to pay for eyeglasses or acupuncture but not an aspirin - that is, unless you have a prescription for it.
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With college graduation around the corner, parents are peppering their insurers with questions about how the new health care reform law will affect their adult children.
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CLASS is an acronym for the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act. It’s a little-noticed provision in the new health-reform law.
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Despite all the national news headlines focused on the new health care bill, its effects haven’t hit too close to home yet.
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In one of its first steps to carry out the new health care law, the Obama administration announced Friday that it was establishing a temporary insurance pool where uninsured people with medical problems could buy coverage at reduced rates.
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The Obama administration sought Friday to show voters concrete benefits from the new health care law, taking steps to provide insurance coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions.
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When Allison McMaster Young heard that the new health overhaul law would allow her and her husband to keep their 21-year-old son on their family health insurance policy until age 26, she breathed a sigh of relief.
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It got precious little debate in either the House or Senate, and President Obama didn’t even mention it when he signed the huge health bill into law.
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Congress voted to overhaul the health care system on a Sunday. On Monday, Patti Lawson e-mailed her employer’s human resources office to ask how soon she could get her 22-year-old daughter back on her health insurance.
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Seniors aren’t celebrating President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
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With the ink barely dry on this year’s comprehensive health care law, the Obama administration and consumer and industry groups are readying education campaigns designed to stop history from repeating itself.
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Under pressure from the White House, health insurance companies said Tuesday that they would comply with rules to be issued soon by the Obama administration requiring them to cover children with pre-existing medical problems.
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The sweeping health care overhaul signed into law his month by President Barack Obama is more than 2,000 pages long and has been dissected by analysts, politicians and pundits.
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Tucked inside the huge health reform bill signed into law last week were many surprising and little-noticed provisions that will affect consumers in ways large and small.
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The legislation, the most sweeping shift in U.S. social policy in decades, extends insurance coverage to 32 million uninsured people. Here are some provisions of the law.
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More than a week after President Obama signed the sweeping new health care law, which will eventually provide insurance coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans, many of us are still scratching our heads. What just happened? And how and when will we start feeling its effect?
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The bill, which he signed March 23, does not extend coverage to these immigrants. Though the issue later died down, the question of how to meet the health needs of undocumented residents is far from settled.
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Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition. That’s the new mantra, repeated triumphantly by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski and other advocates for women’s health. But what does it mean?
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Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans — a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.
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Even without the new health care law, mental health advocates were getting ready to celebrate parity — a law requiring benefits for substance abuse and mental illnesses to be on par with benefits for medical illnesses.
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The insurance industry says it won’t fight President Barack Obama over fixing a coverage gap for kids in the new health care law.
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How the new health law could affect you, and how soon.
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Here is a look at four people — an uninsured woman with a pre-existing condition, a man happy with his current insurance plan, a college student and a self-employed professional — and how the new health care legislation will likely affect each of them in both the short and long term.

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What does the new legislation mean for you? Here are some answers.
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Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.
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Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.
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Some people will have greater access to care at more affordable prices. Some will retain their current coverage but keep a wary eye on how their health insurance premiums change.
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It’s the first and one of the hardest tests of the Democrats’ ambitious plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system: in the next 90 days establishing a federally funded program to cover people turned down by private insurers because they have a pre-existing medical condition.
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Congress on Thursday gave final approval to a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care overhaul, capping a bitter partisan battle over the most far-reaching social legislation in nearly half a century.
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Critics say bill discourages firms from expanding, but others hope plan will help cut premiums, level playing field.
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Although the health care debate might be subsiding in Congress, the arguments go on in the Missouri General Assembly.
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The recently passed health care reform bill has lawmakers in Jefferson City at odds.
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Debate over the federal health insurance overhaul has spilled over into the state Capitol.

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The last piece of President Barack Obama’s remake of the nation’s health care system hit a parliamentary snag early Thursday in the Senate, and appears likely to be headed back to the House for one final vote before becoming law, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said.

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President Obama’s restructuring of the nation’s health care system will make it easier for poor and sick Americans to get and keep insurance.
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On Tuesday, President Obama signed into law a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, approved by the Senate on Christmas Eve and by the House on Sunday.
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Hours after President Obama signed sweeping health care legislation into law Tuesday, the Senate began a debate on another piece of the package, giving Republicans one last chance to alter the bill before it begins to transform insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
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With the strokes of 22 pens, a buoyant President Obama on Tuesday signed into law the most far-reaching health care overhaul in two generations, vindicating a yearlong struggle on which he had staked his presidency.
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The Obama administration is scrambling to fix a potential problem with a much-touted benefit of its new health care law, a gap in coverage improvements for children in poor health, officials said Tuesday.
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Missouri Republican lawmakers and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder vow to oppose President Obama’s health insurance reform with a lawsuit and by changing the state constitution.
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As far as shop owner Rob Osborne is concerned, the historic health care reform package that President Obama plans to sign into law Tuesday, is a lot like Osborne’s sub sandwiches: A little bit of this. A little bit of that. And, in the end, made to look digestible.
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In affixing his signature Tuesday to comprehensive health care legislation, President Obama will set in motion a fundamental shift across a sprawling industry, from insurers who will face an expanding list of restrictions to hospitals and doctors confronted with new incentives to practice more efficient care.
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As Americans delve into the health care blueprint approved by the House of Representatives on Sunday, they will confront a bargain not unlike those earlier generations of Americans faced with Social Security and Medicare.
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While most provisions of the health care overhaul package are not slated to take effect for years, families of children with chronic or severe illnesses can expect almost immediate relief from health insurance companies.
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Expansive U.S. health care reforms aim to expand access to care for millions of uninsured, but could further squeeze some employers still trying to shake off a depressed economy.
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What does health care reform do for me — or to me?
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Unlike most of the laws Congress passes each year, the massive health care bill President Obama will sign today is destined to affect nearly all American families.
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Senate Democrats vowed to start debate today on a series of changes to President Obama’s landmark health care legislation, launching the final battle in the year-long effort to revamp the nation’s health insurance system.
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The sweeping health care overhaul the U.S. House of Representatives approved on Sunday includes about $455 billion in spending cuts for Medicare and other federal health programs over the next 10 years.
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The $940 billion health care overhaul will take nearly a decade to roll out in full. A look at the key parts of the bill and when they go into effect.
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A constitutional showdown over federal mandates and higher Medicaid bills for states may be among the long-term consequences of the U.S. House’s approval of the bill to extend coverage to the uninsured, experts in Missouri say.
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St. Louis Congressman Lacy Clay says he’s so proud of Congress for approving major health care legislation while St. Louis area Congressman Todd Akin calls the legislation the worst bill he’s ever seen.
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What will the overhaul of the nation’s health care system approved by the U.S. House of Representatives mean for individuals and families?
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American consumers, who spent a year watching Congress scratch and claw over sweeping health care legislation, can now try to figure out what the overhaul would mean for them.
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Rising costs facing insurers could cut into increases they see in revenue as more Americans are covered. For patients, much is unclear.
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The biggest transformation of the U.S. health system in decades won approval on Capitol Hill late Sunday, the culmination of efforts by generations of Democrats to achieve near-universal health coverage.
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The House on Sunday night cast historic votes to overhaul health insurance and spend $940 billion over the next decade to extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.
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Here’s a detailed look at what this combined package could mean for you, depending on your income, age, job status, and current insurance.
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Capping a year of legislative activity and ending decades of Democratic frustration, the House on Sunday passed a bill that would extend health care coverage to more than 30 million Americans.
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The main piece of the package, the underlying Senate bill, will be sent to President Barack Obama for his signature. The other piece – a reconciliation bill that would make several changes to the new law - goes back to the Senate.
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Obama administration officials and wonks call them "early deliverables." They’re the benefits of the health legislation that would kick in this election year.
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The health-care overhaul will change the way millions of Americans get health insurance and require nearly everyone to have health insurance or face penalties. A number of factors - including income, age, location and family size - will determine how it specifically impacts your life.
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The health overhaul package passed by the House Sunday and sent to the Senate for final action is the most far-reaching health legislation since the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
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Buoyed by estimates that their health care overhaul would cut the deficit by $138 billion over the next decade, congressional Democrats unveiled their final blueprint Thursday and set the stage for a dramatic House vote Sunday.
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The Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase and other health care provisions are back in the cross hairs, as the House lurches toward final votes on the health care overhaul and reconciliation bill.
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The largest percentage of Missourians with health insurance, either employer-provided or individually bought, lives in Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s second congressional district in west St. Louis County.
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As the House prepares to vote this weekend on the Senate’s health care bill and a reconciliation package of changes, we answer five questions about the bill, the process and what it ultimately means to the American people.
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Pushing toward a Sunday vote that could transform the nation’s health insurance system, House leaders announced a $940 billion compromise Thursday that would extend coverage to the vast majority of Americans, cut billions of dollars from Medicare, and impose new taxes on the wealthy and the well-insured.
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Health insurance coverage of autism spectrum disorders would be required under legislation passed Thursday in the Missouri Senate.
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In their attempt to pass a sweeping health care overhaul this weekend, House Democrats are pushing a package of legislative fixes to lure undecided or opposed members of their party to the "yes" category.
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While Democrats were struggling to enact a major health care reform bill in Washington on Tuesday, the Missouri House moved in the opposite direction by approving a proposed constitutional amendment against a federal mandate for universal insurance.
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President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are pulling together a final version of a health care overhaul bill and pushing for House votes as early as this week.
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As lawmakers clashed fiercely over major health care legislation on the House floor, Democrats struggled Tuesday to defend procedural shortcuts they might use to win approval for their proposals in the next few days.
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Congressional Democrats rushing to push President Obama’s health care initiative to final passage this week hit a new snag Tuesday, as the final piece of the package was held up by concerns that it would do too little to reduce the nation’s budget deficit.
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Throughout the national health care debate, the Republican leadership has focused on two issues - tort reform and allowing the sale of policies across state lines - as way to tamp down health-care costs.
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Democrats are still wrangling support for the health bill in the House, but leading Democrats say it could pass the House as soon as this coming weekend. Here’s a look at the steps needed to move the bill forward.
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If health care is not reformed, uninsured Americans could pay twice as much for health insurance in 10 years, a U.S. foundation says.
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Despite the tough financial times, the restaurant recently decided to help cooks and waiters buy health coverage for the first time in its 25-year history.
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Nixon, facing declines in revenue for two straight years, says he has to squeeze savings from all programs, including Medicaid.
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It took lawmakers a year to shape President Barack Obama’s health care bill. If it finally passes Congress, it’ll take the better part of a decade to write the user manual for consumers and doctors, employers and insurance companies.
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Every day, dozens of confused, laid-off workers call the privately-run COBRA Help Center in Long Island, N.Y., which administers COBRA group health insurance plans. They’re struggling to understand whether they’re eligible for federal subsidies.
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Most big employers plan to shift a larger share of health-care costs to their workers next year, according to a survey released Thursday.
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Congressional leaders discuss key issues but admit they might miss a voting deadline.
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President Barack Obama said he can help pay for his health care reforms, following the example of Harry S. Truman, by finding waste and fraud in government spending.
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Separate from the swirling national debate about health care reform, state lawmakers in Missouri next week are expected to start reviewing a bill that would cut state funding for federally qualified health centers like Access Family Care.
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President Barack Obama will try to rally a skeptical public behind his health insurance overhaul in a speech in St. Charles today that may remind Missourians of Obama’s days as a hard-charging candidate.
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The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were bracing for a key procedural ruling that could complicate their effort to approve major health care legislation, by requiring President Obama to sign the bill into law before Congress could revise it through an expedited budget process.
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At the heart of President Obama’s drive to rein in health costs is a proposal for federal review and regulation of health insurance premiums, with a new agency empowered to block excessive rate increases.
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The White House is mounting a stinging, sustained broadside against health insurance rate increases as President Obama and his aides enter what they hope will be the final stretch of a year-long political war over health care reform.
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Since the Senate passed its version of a health overhaul on Christmas Eve, most of the debate has focused on the politics of the effort. By now, many people have forgotten — if they ever knew — what the bill would actually do. So here’s a short refresher.

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While Medicaid is the main government health insurance plan for the poor, the joint state-federal program has excluded Matthews and millions of other adults with no dependent children since the 1960s.
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Like most Americans, Dominic Ouellette, an uninsured 23-year-old waiter in Washington, likely would be required to have health coverage under the legislation being debated in Congress. Because he’s younger than 30, though, he could buy a low-cost plan under the Senate bill and the new White House proposal.
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To bolster the case for a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system, the Obama administration is seizing on a new analysis by Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank, recommending that investors buy shares in two big insurance companies, the UnitedHealth Group and Cigna, because insurance rates are up sharply and competition is down.
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As legislators attempt to plug what could be a $300 million shortfall in revenues, social service providers across the region are scrambling to deal with $60 million in cuts proposed in February by the Missouri House Appropriations Committee for Health, Mental Health and Social Services.
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A budget appropriations committee in the Missouri House of Representatives has voted to eliminate funding for community health centers at a time when more Missourians are finding themselves unemployed, uninsured and in need of health-care providers.
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President Obama offered Tuesday to address some of the concerns expressed by Republicans in the health care debate as the two parties maneuvered for advantage heading into the legislative end game.
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At least a half-dozen House Democrats who voted against the health care bill say they are now undecided, and President Barack Obama says he is willing to embrace several Republican ideas to collect more votes.
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The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has summoned the chiefs of WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna to testify about denying claims for policyholders with preexisting conditions.
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Denise Camp was resigned to the double standard that had long applied to her medical bills, forcing her to skimp on other expenses so she could pay for mental health treatment.
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President Obama this week will begin a climactic push to rally restive Congressional Democrats to pass major health care legislation by hammering the argument that the costs of failure will be higher insurance premiums and lost coverage for individuals and businesses.
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Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans will begin losing unemployment and health benefits this week as a one-man filibuster in the Senate continued to block a measure to extend those and other programs for one month.
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The White House said Monday the leading tactic to win passage of the health care bill was nothing extraordinary, rehearsing a key argument in the final public-relations battle over the bill.
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If you listened carefully to the White House summit on health care last week, you could hear, among all the disagreements, a few points of agreement.
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Suppose Congress and President Obama fail to overhaul the system now, or just tinker around the edges, or start over, as the Republicans propose — despite the Democrats’ latest and possibly last big push that began last week at a marathon televised forum in Washington. Then “my health care” stays the same, right?

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Obama said that two parties might be able to reach agreement on 95 percent of the issues, but he says expanded coverage and pre-existing conditions may turn out to be gaps that cannot be closed.
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President Obama declared Thursday that the time for debate over health care reform has come to an end, closing an unusual seven-hour summit with congressional leaders by sending a clear message that Democrats will move forward to pass major legislation with or without Republican support.
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The nationally televised session stretched over more than seven hours and, to no one’s surprise, yielded no new agreement, although lawmakers strove to maintain an atmosphere of decorum and cooperation—even as they aired their warring views.
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President Obama’s face-to-face effort to forge a bipartisan agreement on health care overhaul appeared to fall short Thursday, as differences that have plagued the process for months re-emerged during a meeting at Washington’s historic Blair House.
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A bill that would mandate insurance coverage for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is now one step closer to becoming a reality after being passed by the Missouri House of Representatives.
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President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.
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The House voted Wednesday to strip health insurance companies of their exemption from federal antitrust laws, a Democratic measure that could resonate with public concerns about insurers but that has an uncertain future in the Senate.
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To reconcile or not to reconcile — when it comes to a health overhaul bill, that seems to be the biggest argument of the moment.
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Republican Congressional leaders on Tuesday rejected President Obama’s challenge to come up with a single comprehensive proposal to achieve his goal of guaranteeing health insurance for nearly all Americans.
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His plan isn’t a blueprint for a new approach to revamping the system and will likely be used as a guide to modifying existing legislation.
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With comprehensive health care legislation foundering in Congress, the House is turning to a narrower piece of legislation that lawmakers hope has widespread, populist appeal: repealing the antitrust exemption for health insurers.
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President Obama on Monday issued his own blueprint for a health care overhaul, challenged Republicans to come forward with their ideas and laid the groundwork for an aggressive parliamentary maneuver to pass the legislation using only Democratic votes if this week brings no progress toward a bipartisan solution.
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Some small-business advocates criticized President Barack Obama’s proposed health care overhaul as imposing stiffer requirements on employers to provide insurance for workers while not doing enough to lower costs.
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For the first time in the year-long debate over health care, President Obama has released his own vision of what a comprehensive overhaul should look like.
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Here’s how President Obama’s plan for the health care overhaul compares with the Senate and House versions.
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Obama definitely throws in a new twist or two, such as proposals for federal oversight of health insurance rates and making it illegal for brand-name drug manufacturers to delay release of generic competitors.But the fundamental approach to expanding health coverage is the same.
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President Obama made it clear Monday morning that he intends to make a final push for a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care and insurance system, offering a new health care plan that largely embraces the approach already taken by the U.S. Senate.
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Some governors, frustrated by halted federal efforts to overhaul the U.S. health care system, are introducing their own changes at the state level.
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President Obama’s new health care overhaul plan would give the federal government greater authority to stop rate increases imposed by health insurers, an administration official said late Sunday.
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A firestorm between the Obama administration and health insurers escalated Thursday, as the Department of Health and Human Services pointed to double-digit price increases or attempted increases in six states to make the case for overhauling the health care system.
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Facing relentless fiscal pressure and exploding demand for government health care, virtually every state is making or considering substantial cuts in Medicaid, even as Democrats push to add 15 million people to the rolls.
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The recession has fueled the greatest influx of Americans onto Medicaid since the earliest days of the public insurance program for the poor, according to new findings that show caseloads have surged in every state.
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President Obama will put forward comprehensive health care legislation intended to bridge differences between Senate and House Democrats ahead of a summit meeting with Republicans next week, senior administration officials and Congressional aides said Thursday.
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A proposed tax on high-cost health insurance plans, an element of Democratic health care legislation that has been strongly opposed by organized labor, would actually fall equally on nonunion plans, according to a new analysis.
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Health insurers regulated by the state would have to cover treatment for autism under a bill that has passed the House and moved to the Senate.
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Southeast Missouri did not fare well in a snapshot of well-being by counties across the United States.
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A hefty infusion of cash for community health centers in last year’s federal stimulus package may be paying off.
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For the first time, a new report reveals how counties across America stack up when it comes to health.
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The Missouri House on Tuesday took the first step toward mandating that insurance companies cover certain treatments for children with autism.
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More than a quarter of American children have a chronic health condition such as obesity or asthma, but many children overcome these problems with time, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
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St. Charles County ranks second in healthy residents in Missouri, behind Platte County, according to a first-of-a-kind study rating the overall health of counties in all 50 states.
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A Missouri House committee slashed nearly $60 million from social-service programs in next year’s budget, including funding for health clinics, child care subsidies and assistance to victims of domestic violence.
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With health care negotiations stalled in Washington, the Obama administration is seizing on the seething fury felt by Mr. Punzet and nearly 700,000 other Anthem customers in California who have received notices of increases that average 25 percent.
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Is forcing people to have insurance a useful strategy to spread the costs, or an ill-conceived notion that would only exacerbate the problem?
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The latest estimates place the number of U.S. children with autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 110.
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The Missouri Dental Association argues that putting all Medicaid dollars for dental services in one pot and setting up a single-payer system to run it would produce a more efficient and less costly system.
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What could be worse than health care overhaul? No health care overhaul.

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Proponents of leaving health-care reform to the states have gained momentum as national legislation stalls in Congress, setting off a new debate over who is best able to tackle one of the nation’s thorniest social issues.
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Missouri lawmakers, from both the House and Senate are proposing legislation that would require insurance companies to cover treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
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Anthem Blue Cross, the California health insurance company that was criticized by the Obama administration for raising its premiums, said Thursday that the increases of up to 39 percent were driven by rising health care costs.
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The Obama administration is seizing on a big health-insurance rate increase by WellPoint Inc. in California as fresh evidence of the need for action as it tries to resuscitate its health-care legislation.
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The monthly mortgage payment is the heaviest expense facing the average U.S. family but for heart patient Frank Amend, an engineer from North Carolina, the biggest cost is health care.
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Many parts of the economy are slowly recovering, but when it comes to health insurance costs, the worst appears far from over.
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President Obama said Tuesday that he will consider any Republican health care ideas, as long as the ideas address the goals contained in the Democratic plans already passed by the House and Senate.
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As Democrats have pushed for a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s health system, much of their plans have focused on providing coverage for America’s uninsured.
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Signaling he’d meet critics part way on health care, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he’s willing to sign a bill even if it doesn’t deliver everything he pursued through a year of grinding effort at risk of going down as a dismal failure.
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The national debate over health care appears to be taking a back seat to jobs creation — but the problem persists for people who have jobs but no health insurance.
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President Obama says he aims to keep trying. But what happens if the health care legislation cannot be revived, and tens of millions of uninsured Americans continue without coverage?
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When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net.
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The Missouri Senate spent nearly all of its session time Monday on resolutions that would urge the state’s attorney general to sue the federal government for legislation that may never see the light of day in the U.S. Congress.
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President Obama’s secretary of health and human services fired off a sharply worded letter to a California insurer Monday, demanding to know why it is raising rates for individual policyholders by as much as 39 percent.
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President Obama moved to jump-start the stalled health care debate Sunday, inviting Republicans in Congress to participate in a bipartisan, half-day televised summit on the subject this month.
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As a practicing psychiatrist and a state mental health administrator, Dr. Joseph Parks sees both sides of the debate over the use of antipsychotic medication to treat high-energy children who hallucinate, can’t sit still or keep their thoughts together.
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One in 110 children born in the United States is diagnosed with autism, but health insurance companies in Missouri do not routinely provide coverage for the disorder.
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Millions of Americans are now eligible for improved employer-provided mental-health and substance-abuse insurance coverage.
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For the first time, government programs next year will account for more than half of all U.S. health-care spending, federal actuaries predict, as the weak economy sends more people into Medicaid and slows growth of private insurance.
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With health care legislation stalled, Republicans are touting their own remedies, including allowing Americans to buy health coverage across state lines. Currently, consumers can buy policies only from insurers licensed by the states in which they live.
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Democratic leaders working to craft a health care bill were dealt a setback last week when Republican Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts cost them the supermajority needed to block filibusters. Now the fate of the overhaul is in doubt.
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The White House, with its health care initiative in doubt, on Sunday zeroed in on several elements it hoped would survive, including measures to extend the life of Medicare, lower prescription drug costs for seniors and cap consumers’ out-of-pocket medical expenses.
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Governor Nixon recommends a 120-million dollar funding cut for the Medicaid program. But the administration thinks the cuts will be mostly painless.
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Trimming back the 2,000-page, trillion-dollar Democratic health care bills to the parts that average folks understand and like may not be as simple as it sounds.
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Even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi affirmed her commitment to pass far-reaching health care legislation this year, members of Congress and health policy experts began Thursday to deal with the reality that a smaller bill would have a better chance.
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As congressional Democrats work feverishly to bridge the gaps between the House and Senate health care overhaul bills, one issue is becoming a subject of considerable debate: affordability.
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Missouri legislators were warned of an impending "autism tsunami" Tuesday as committees in both chambers heard bills mandating insurance coverage for the disorder.
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Although disabled workers can expect improvements, the legislation moving toward final passage in Congress doesn’t deliver the clean fix that advocates for people with serious medical conditions hoped for. Some of the neediest could find themselves still in limbo.
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Missouri Republicans are raising concerns about federal health care legislation, claiming its mandatory Medicaid expansion would have a "drastic" and "devastating" effect on the state’s finances.
But some of their rhetoric may exceed reality.

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President Obama and congressional leaders raced Friday to strike a compromise on far-reaching health legislation, hoping to settle lingering disputes before Tuesday, when a special election in Massachusetts could hand Republicans their 41st vote in the Senate and the power to defeat Obama’s top domestic initiative.
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Gripped by a building sense that its window of opportunity could be closing, the White House on Thursday broke the last major logjam blocking enactment of far-reaching health care legislation, cutting a deal with organized labor on how to tax high-cost insurance policies.
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Until age 4, Charles Quigless, an angelic-looking child with a wide, gapped-tooth smile, had only his hands, feet and a variety of noises with which to communicate. When Charles was diagnosed with autism at age 3, his parents hit the ground running, knowing they had only a small window of time in which he could learn language.
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Should someone in Idaho or Nevada have significantly different health care coverage from someone in Massachusetts? That, essentially, is one of the biggest questions Congress will be wrestling with as it tries to meld House and Senate bills into a single law to revamp the nation’s health care system.

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Democratic congressional leaders are considering a new strategy to help finance their ambitious health care plan - applying the Medicare payroll tax not just to wages but to capital gains, dividends and other forms of unearned income.
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With a growing sense of urgency, President Obama and top Congressional Democrats held a marathon negotiating session on Wednesday in an effort to thrash out agreements on sweeping health care legislation that could provide insurance coverage to more than 30 million Americans.
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Democrats on Capitol Hill are divided over whether health insurance would be sold at the state or national level under their health care reform legislation, one of a series of differences between House and Senate plans that need to be ironed out before it can pass.
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As Congress seeks to reach consensus on a bill to provide health insurance for everyone, state lawmakers are turning their attention to the price tag.
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The White House wants to include a national health insurance exchange in the health bill, which would give House Democrats one of their top remaining demands, according to an official involved in the discussions.
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House and Senate negotiators working on President Barack Obama’s health overhaul bill appear likely to drop a proposed income tax increase on high-wage earners and possibly jettison a requirement for large businesses to offer coverage to their employees, Democratic officials said Tuesday.
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State senators get a thorough briefing on national health care, but don’t get the answer they crave most: how much will an overhaul cost Missouri.
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Getting a final health overhaul bill to President Obama’s desk by the end of the month or early February remains the goal of lawmakers who are returning to Washington this week. But the task remains a tricky one.
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President Obama told union leaders at a private White House meeting on Monday that he remained committed to taxing high-cost insurance policies as a way to drive down health costs. But he also signaled that he was willing to amend the proposal to “make this work for working families,” a senior administration official said.
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It isn’t often that the Missouri Chamber of Commerce sees eye to eye with some Democratic members of the Missouri congressional delegation on health care reform.
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It might be another week or so before Capitol Hill lawmakers in Washington get down to determining the look of the final health care reform bill. But state lawmakers in Jefferson City are already talking about it.
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Details on who would be eligible under House and Senate proposals; plus questions about shopping the ’exchange,’ understanding bronze and platinum plans, and more.
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Americans would see only a modest rise in health care costs under the Senate’s plan to extend coverage to 34 million people who currently go without health insurance, government economic experts say in a new report.
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The Petersons’ story helps explain the daunting task facing many uninsured people who need surgery or specialty care as well as the frustration of the increasingly fewer doctors who accept uninsured and Medicaid patients. It also raises the question of whether pending federal health reforms would help families like these.
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National health care legislation in Congress could slow the growth of medical costs, allowing employers to create 250,000 to 400,000 new jobs a year over the next decade, economists from Harvard University and USC are predicting.
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Advocacy groups lobbied President Barack Obama and Congress on Thursday, trying to eliminate what they called a "loophole" in Senate health care legislation they said could allow insurers to raise rates on customers based on their weight or blood sugar levels.
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Sen. Ben Nelson said Thursday he has asked Democratic leadership to extend to all states the extra Medicaid funding promised to Nebraska in the health care reform bill.
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With Congress on the verge of imposing a new tax on high-cost health insurance plans, skeptics continue to raise questions about who would be hit hardest and whether health care spending would be limited as much as proponents say.
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The White House supports an effort to tweak the health bill so it makes insurance more affordable for the lowest earners.
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President Obama told House Democratic leaders at a meeting on Wednesday that they should include a tax on high-priced insurance policies favored by the Senate in the final version of far-reaching health care legislation, aides said.
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House Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they would insist on changes to the Senate health care legislation to make coverage more affordable for middle-class Americans and to tighten control over the insurance industry.
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A federal law that took effect Jan. 1 requires that patients get the same level of medical treatment for mental problems that they now get for other health conditions.
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Eighty percent of Missouri’s counties don’t have enough physicians. Many of those counties are rural, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
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Thanks to some last-minute maneuvering by Congress, thousands of jobless workers will continue to receive affordable health insurance in 2010.
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Michael Rhoads seems just the sort of person who would benefit from health care reform. He and his wife, working parents of two children in Southwest Philadelphia, lack health insurance. They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little, they say, to afford private coverage.

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The health care overhaul bills on Capitol Hill do not upend traditional "fee for service" payment for doctors, but they do include financial incentives for doctors to cut medical costs and improve patient care.
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The Senate passed its version of the health care overhaul on Christmas Eve. Here are some questions about what’s next as the legislation continues to work its way through Congress.
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On an average working day last year the Missouri Department of Insurance took a complaint about health insurance every hour and 18 minutes, almost 11-hundred complaints about group health and more than 650 complaints about individual health insurance in all.
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Even as Democrats seek the biggest expansion of health coverage in decades, as many as 23 million people could still be without insurance by 2018, illustrating the complexity of achieving the long-held Democratic goal of universal health care.
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The government is expanding a massive safety net to help the unemployed buy health insurance, but millions of people can’t access the aid because of the way the program was designed.
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Senate Democrats approved landmark legislation just after sunrise Christmas Eve that would transform the nation’s health care system by requiring people without insurance to obtain coverage and protecting those who have it from the most unpopular private insurance practices.
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The Senate approved sweeping health overhaul legislation on Thursday, a landmark moment for White House-led efforts to expand insurance coverage to more than 30 million Americans.
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Missouri’s senators split over legislation overhauling the nation’s health insurance system — as have the state’s two leading Senate candidates.
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Now that the Senate has passed a hotly debated health care bill, Congress is headed to the next step: House of Representatives-Senate negotiations in January to hammer out a final version.
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For consumers, the most confusing part of the health care bill may be when — and if — they will see its benefits.
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The Senate passed its health care bill Dec. 24 but key differences need to be resolved with the House before a final measure is ready for President Obama’s signature.
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Now that the Senate has passed landmark health-care legislation with a rare Christmas Eve vote, the hardest work of all will begin: reckoning with long-standing differences between the House and Senate versions of reform and uniting behind a single bill that can be sent to the president.
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The Mayo Clinic, often cited by the Obama administration as a model for high-quality, cost-effective health care, generally supports key provisions of the legislation approved by the Senate, an official said Thursday, but he called for more aggressive steps to change how care in the U.S. is paid for.
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The Senate approved the landmark health bill early Christmas Eve, a key step for President Obama and the Democrats in moving forward with health overhaul.
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After more than three weeks of rancorous debate and a series of hard-fought procedural victories, Senate Democrats passed a bill that provides a blueprint for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
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A last-minute addition to the Senate health care bill that requires small construction companies to offer health coverage or pay a fine touched off a battle Tuesday with some industry groups demanding its removal.
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President Barack Obama on Monday signed a measure to extend a federal subsidy for continued health insurance coverage for involuntarily terminated workers under employer group plans.
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As the Senate lurches towards a final vote on its health overhaul bill, some people are daring to look ahead to the last step in the painstaking process: marrying the Senate and House bills.
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Democrats remained united as they started voting at sunrise Tuesday, pushing toward their goal of passing President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul by Christmas.
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The ’individual mandate’ expected in any final health care bill is meant to spread the cost and risk and to make sure that people don’t wait until they’re ill to buy coverage.
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Senate Democrats won a milestone victory early Monday in the health care debate, approving a procedural motion to move the reform legislation to final passage later this week, and without a single vote to spare.
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Despite legislation’s requirement, some Americans say they’ll go without insurance
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The Democratic-controlled Senate, voting 60-40, swept aside Republican objections and moved to close off debate on health overhaul legislation, marking a milestone moment for President Barack Obama’s most pressing domestic initiative.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled a revised health care bill Dec. 19 that includes concessions on abortion and other issues needed to secure a 60-vote Democratic majority to overcome a Republican filibuster. The Senate is expected to vote Christmas eve.
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When Senate Democratic leaders agreed this week to remove a public insurance plan from their massive health care bill, they did more than quash a liberal dream of expanding the government safety net. They effectively pinned their hopes of guaranteeing coverage to all Americans on a far more conventional prescription: government regulation.
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With federal health care legislation lingering in Washington, there have been multiple bills pre-filed for the 2010 Missouri legislative session dealing with health care.
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A year in the making, sweeping health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama hung in the balance Thursday as conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson withheld his vote in pursuit of stricter abortion limits and liberals grew restive on the left.
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Congress is getting down to the wire.
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The Senate health care bill could enable insurers to avoid some of the strongest consumer protections and benefit requirements adopted by state governments, Democratic lawmakers from Maine and California say.
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While lawmakers in Washington continue to debate how to make health care affordable for more Americans, thousands of unemployed New Yorkers like Rhonda R. Baumser are suddenly struggling to hang onto their health coverage.
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New obstacles slowed Senate action on the healthcare bill Wednesday, as the hunt for supporters narrowed to a lone Democrat -- Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- and Republican delaying tactics brought debate to a temporary standstill.
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The Senate keeps pushing aside hurdles blocking the huge health overhaul bill. But there are plenty more between the bill and a final vote, which backers still hope to take before Christmas.
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More than 16,000 of the sickest and most uninsurable Missourians could be covered under the state health care pool if it weren’t for high insurance premiums, according to the pool’s director.
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Senate Democrats on Monday evening dropped a plan to expand Medicare, winning the support of moderates and the reluctant acquiescence of liberals, in another major step toward building enough support to pass a health care overhaul.
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The health care system is complex, yet Americans’ experiences with it are deeply personal, making it a prime candidate for distortions and emotional manipulation. While people hold different views about what the nation should do about its coverage, cost and quality problems, facts and nuance often get lost in the political rhetoric of the debate.
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More people than ever are relying on public programs amid rising unemployment, but the departments that administer them are facing budget cuts as well.
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Health care reform legislation winding through the House and Senate gives her new hope because it would prevent insurers from refusing to cover such pre-existing conditions. But there’s a catch - that important provision would not take effect for years.
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Senate Democrats, as an alternative to creating a government-run insurance plan, proposed creating a nationwide plan that would be operated by a nonprofit. Here’s a closer look at the idea.
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The next 48 hours will be critical to the fate of health care reform in the Senate, as Democratic leaders struggle to settle disputes that stand in the way of holding a final vote this year on the massive package.
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Add the names of Ed and Ruth Sessa of Keytesville to the growing rolls of people going without health insurance.

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Democratic leaders hit a rough patch Friday in their push for sweeping health care legislation, as they tried to fend off criticism of their proposals from a top Medicare official, Republicans and even members of their own party.
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A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.
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Senate Democrats have provided few details about their latest health care proposal, but this much seems clear: Anyone who wants to buy the same health benefits as members of Congress, or to buy coverage through Medicare, should be prepared to fork over a large chunk of cash.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed support Thursday for a Senate Democratic proposal to expand Medicare, raising prospects that the two chambers of Congress can work out differences on health care legislation.
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Senators from the two states have solidified their positions as the health care debate takes shape in that chamber.
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About the same time that snippets of a deal on health care legislation worked by Senate Democrats were leaking out Tuesday night, more than 150 unemployed people and their families gathered for a holiday party at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Downingtown.
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Missourians have some of the nation’s worst dental health. The state ranks 47th in percentage of adults who have visited the dentist in the last year (63 percent).
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For eight hours Wednesday, as many as 1,000 people streamed through an enormous free clinic at Bartle Hall to get health care some had been putting off for years.
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While confusion reigned on Capitol Hill on Wednesday over the prospects and details of a Senate deal to replace a government-run insurance plan with other measures, it is not too soon to ask what the proposal would mean for regular people.
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The deal, which emerged late Tuesday night after days of negotiations among a group of 10 Democratic senators, dropped the idea of a government-run insurance program.
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Millions more Americans could get access to Medicare under the latest health proposal by Senate Democrats. But the program may not be cheap enough to entice some of them to sign up.
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Senate Democrats on Wednesday largely embraced a compromise that dropped a "public option" from health care legislation, setting aside their concerns about aspects of the consensus plan in the hopes that the deal hatched by negotiators would serve as a rallying point in their push for the passage of reforms.
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A group of Republican state legislators has pre-filed legislation attempting to exempt Missouri from any federal health care overhaul bill passed in Washington.
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Several hundred people were lined up – inside, not out in the cold – when a two-day free health clinic started at noon today at Bartle Hall.
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Senior Senate Democrats reached tentative agreement Tuesday night to abandon the government-run insurance plan in their health overhaul bill and to expand Medicare coverage to some people ages 55 to 64, clearing the most significant hurdle so far in getting a bill that can pass Congress.
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Democratic Senate negotiators struck a tentative agreement Tuesday night to drop the controversial government-run insurance plan from their overhaul of the health care system, hoping to remove a last major roadblock preventing the bill from moving to a final vote in the chamber.
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Despite the economic downturn that’s busting state budgets from Sacramento to Tallahassee, 26 states this year made it easier for low-income children, parents or pregnant women to get health coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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They may still call it a "public plan," but private insurers — not the government — would offer coverage under a compromise Democrats are considering to win Senate passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
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Senate Democrats are considering a significant expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, the health programs for the elderly and the poor, as part of a package of potential changes to health overhaul legislation that would also sharply scale back a proposed new government-run insurance plan.
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Racing to complete work on health care legislation before Christmas, Senate Democrats worked on a compromise Monday that could leave their bill without a new government insurance plan.
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PBS NewsHour talked to six individuals -- a small business owner, a young uninsured woman, and others -- and discussed with health policy analysts how each person might fare under the House and Senate reform bills.
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It’s known as "Express Lane Eligibility" -- an effort to put children on the fast track for government-run health care coverage.
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Democrats wrestled with a new proposal on a government health insurance plan that would give private entities a central role in running the program, in a bid for compromise on one of the health bill’s most divisive issues.
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President Obama traveled to Capitol Hill on Sunday to rally Democrats on his signature health care initiative as the Senate moved closer to addressing two of the biggest land mines in the bill’s path: the terms of a new public insurance option and limits on federal abortion funding.
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Some of readers’ most frequently asked questions since the health care debate began in earnest this summer.
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President Obama has promised that the nation’s health care overhaul will make medical insurance available - and affordable - for everyone.
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The Senate voted Thursday to require health insurance companies to provide free mammograms and other preventive services to women, and it turned back a Republican challenge to Medicare savings that constitute the single largest source of financing for the bill.
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During an announcement at the Burrell Autism Center, the governor and lawmakers said they will sponsor bills to make sure insurance companies cover "evidence-based" treatment for people with autism.
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Verzi is among the millions of unemployed workers nationwide who choose to keep their previous employer’s health plan under a federal act known as COBRA.
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At the end of a third day of Senate debate over sweeping health care legislation, Democrats and Republicans said Wednesday night that they had broken an impasse over the seemingly simple question of how and when to vote on the first amendments.
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A bill that would mandate insurance companies pay for behavioral treatment for autism failed to pass the legislature last session. A renewed attempt for the upcoming session is in the works.
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Senators prepared to cast their first votes Wednesday on health care reform, but even as partisan divisions hardened and contentious amendments stacked up, Democrats increasingly expressed optimism that they would succeed in passing a bill before Christmas.
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Democrats appealed to women and Republicans made a pitch to seniors Tuesday in amendments to the Senate health bill that showed how each party is trying to frame the health care debate.
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A new study estimates that the end of a hefty government subsidy could force millions of laid-off workers to pay more than 80 percent of their monthly unemployment checks to keep their job-based family health insurance coverage intact.
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The Congressional Budget Office said Monday that the Senate health bill could significantly reduce costs for many people who buy health insurance on their own, and that it would not substantially change premiums for the vast numbers of Americans who receive coverage from large employers.

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As the Senate plunged Monday into a colossal debate on health care reform, a key question is blaring louder than ever: whether national proposals would do much to control health care costs.


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As the Senate takes up health care legislation this week, the question of whether it will "bend the curve" of soaring costs has emerged as a central dispute among experts and the subject of an all-out push by the White House.
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Millions of unemployed Americans face the prospect of a huge increase in health insurance costs, thanks to the looming expiration of a government subsidy.

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Pay attention: The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" - better known as the Senate health care overhaul bill – is chock full of interesting but little publicized provisions affecting consumers.
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The White House has a message for Americans suffering under today’s health insurance system: "Help is on the way." But not as fast as you might think.

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Some questions and answers on the House-passed bill and the version the Senate will begin debating in the week ahead.
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The Senate is set to begin debate on its health overhaul bill Monday, with Democrats and Republicans planning to offer amendments on divisive subjects such as abortion and taxes that could hamper passage of the bill.
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Readers also ask about the penalties for not buying health insurance; changes that veterans would see; interstate insurance plans; and whether the ’public option’ would cover mammograms.
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Hundreds of doctors, nurses and other volunteers will be stationed at Bartle Hall next month for a massive two-day free clinic that, if experience holds true, could attract thousands of patients.
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Some of the debtors sitting forlornly in this city’s old stone bankruptcy court have lost a job or gotten divorced. Others have been summoned to face their creditors because they spent mindlessly beyond their means. But all too often these days, they are there merely because they, or their children, got sick.
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If the Senate were going to write a new rule for Medicare payments meant to slow the growth of medical costs, you might think that the rule would apply to hospitals and doctors. A fair amount of medical care is, after all, provided by hospitals and doctors.
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As the health care battle rages on, one central question keeps popping up: How would legislation affect premiums paid by individuals and small businesses, two groups that currently face wildly unpredictable rate increases year to year?
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Gov. Jay Nixon is resisting a plan that could provide health insurance to thousands of Missouri children despite running for office on a pledge to expand health care access.
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Lawmakers debating health care on Capitol Hill have spent months worrying about the potential cost. But mostly it’s been the total cost of the bill, not how much individual families who could soon be required to buy insurance for the first time might have to pay.
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Gov. Jay Nixon ran for office last year on a platform of insuring every child. But as governor, he has resisted a proposal that could immediately cover thousands of Missouri’s 108,000 uninsured children.
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Democratic leaders finally moved their sweeping health bill to the Senate floor, where wheeling and dealing over major unresolved and divisive issues likely will shape the legislation before its next big test.
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For consumers, the health care bills taking final shape in Congress don’t rate close to a perfect 10.
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Democrats had little time to savor their weekend Senate health care victory, as two of the lawmakers who voted to move the debate forward Saturday night indicated Sunday that they will not vote to pass the package if it includes a government-run insurance program.
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Readers ask about the details of Medicare savings, plus a cosmetic-surgery tax and limits on abortion coverage.
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The Senate voted on Saturday to begin full debate on major health care legislation, propelling President Obama’s top domestic initiative over a crucial, preliminary hurdle in a formidable display of muscle-flexing by the Democratic majority.
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A proposed overhaul of health care narrowly passed the House. Now, the focus is on the Senate.
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On the Jaco Report, why there may be less to health reform than meets the eye. The American health care system is the world’s most expensive and is a long way from being the world’s most effective.
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The Senate version of sweeping health legislation would cover five million fewer people than a companion bill passed by the House, but it would cost less, in part because Senate Democratic leaders felt they had to win support from fiscally conservative members of their party.
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Bills moving through Congress have the potential to change how millions of Americans pay for and get health care.
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The health care overhaul debate in Congress now centers on two bills: the House measure and the Senate Democrats’ version unveiled Wednesday. They differ in important ways. Here are answers to questions you may have about the bills.
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Senate Democrats unveiled sweeping legislation Wednesday to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Earlier this month the House passed its own version.
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Democratic leaders in the Senate on Wednesday unveiled their proposal for overhauling the health care system, outlining legislation that they said would cover most of the uninsured while reducing the federal budget deficit.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set the stage for a climactic debate in the Senate over health care by unveiling a 10-year, $848 billion bill that would extend insurance to 31 million Americans without coverage.
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The House has passed an optimistic bill reflecting many liberal aspirations for health overhaul. The Senate’s final bill — expected to be introduced mid-November — is likely to lean more toward the Finance Committee’s proposal.
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Faced with high health insurance costs, a North Carolina brokerage passed the buck on to its employees, a Texas public relations firm switched from group insurance to stipends, and a Missouri travel agency let its workers walk away instead paying for insurance.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid scrambled Tuesday to lock down votes behind a health care bill that he may present as early as Wednesday.
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One of the staunchest backers of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Sen. Jay Rockefeller isn’t ready to see it swallowed up by a new health insurance marketplace designed by Congress.
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Ask small business owners about the U.S. House’s health reform legislation, and some will say it will take them a while to wade through the proposal.
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To pay for health care reform, the Senate leader considers raising payroll taxes for upper-income workers. Centrist Democrats prefer to tax costly ’Cadillac’ insurance as a way to lower health costs.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pressing to advance his version of health care legislation past a key juncture this week in a bid to avoid a timing crunch that could otherwise kick the proposed revamp into next year.
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While most of the major provisions won’t kick in for a few years, all the health reform proposals include some immediate reforms, such as the creation of a new high-risk insurance pool.
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Requiring employers to offer most workers health insurance has long been seen as a crucial piece of Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system, but legislation that the Senate’s expected to consider soon is unlikely to include any such mandate.
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Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study.
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Some reader questions about the proposed health care legislation in Congress.
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Wedged in the House health care bill is $23.5 billion that looks a lot more like new federal stimulus spending than anything to do with national health-care reform.
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Millions of Americans are now engaged in a familiar ritual: signing up for next year’s health insurance coverage. Pick a plan. Pick a premium. Make sure choices are submitted and approved on time.

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A Missouri Congressman who voted against the health care measure which squeezed its way to passage in the United States House doesn’t believe the bill is going anywhere despite its passage.
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The debate in Congress over health care and insurance reform legislation may soon spill over into the Missouri legislature.
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U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt said Friday that he opposes efforts to end the insurance industry practice of charging higher rates to unhealthier groups of people.
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A group primarily made up of insurance and health care providers asked Missouri’s senior senator Friday morning about the proposed changes to health care and the effect reform would have on Missourians.
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The Business Roundtable, an association of top US business executives, issued an analysis saying the right combination of changes Congress is considering could slow health care cost growth by 15 percent to 20 percent over the next decade.
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When the Senate unveils its health care bill, all eyes will be on the price tag. But an equally significant number may be how many people get health insurance under the legislation.
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The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is considering a proposal to increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income workers to help offset the costs of providing health insurance to millions of Americans, Senate aides said Thursday.
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Some Missouri officials say proposed health care legislation could create an unfunded mandate and even has some calling to abandon the state’s participation in Medicaid.
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In the two weeks since the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, embraced a proposal that would allow states to opt out of a new government health insurance plan, state leaders have begun debating whether to take part, and the question has emerged as a litmus test in some campaigns for governor.
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Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering a plan for higher payroll taxes on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation he intends to introduce in the Senate in the next several days, numerous Democratic officials said Wednesday.
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The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Tuesday that he expected to bring major health care legislation to the floor next week and to complete work on the bill before Christmas. But other Democratic leaders said it was unlikely that a bill could reach President Obama’s desk by year’s end.
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Missouri recently announced it’s cutting $3 million from the Department of Mental Health and will no longer fund services for new patients that don’t have Medicaid.
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As the U.S. government comes closer to reforming the country’s health care system, states are staring at spending millions of dollars they do not have to provide insurance to more people, officials said on Tuesday.
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The bill would limit how much insurers can vary premiums based on the age of the person buying the policy. The narrower the range, the lower the premiums for older people, a help to those who currently pay some of the highest rates for insurance and often need coverage the most.
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Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth of health care spending by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion, over the next decade.
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The health care overhaul passed by the House of Representatives over the weekend was almost scuttled by one issue: abortion.
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The American Medical Association on Monday rebuffed dissident members and voted to stick with support for ongoing health reform efforts, while reiterating wariness over proposals that threaten doctors’ pocketbooks and independence.
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The question is what the so-called age-rating ratio will be. Older adults would be charged at least double, which critics call discrimination. Insurance firms say it’s necessary for a solvent system.
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After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
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A core feature of the health overhaul proposal unveiled by House Republicans - and of GOP plans for years - would allow individual health insurance policies to be sold across state lines. Currently, consumers can buy policies only from insurers licensed by the states where they live.
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With the House health bill passed, Congress moves a step closer to making the biggest changes to the health system in more than four decades. Here’s a look at what the bill would mean for various groups.
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The House bill would provide interim temporary coverage. Also: questions about yearly out-of-pocket limits for subsidies, the federal COBRA subsidy, and more.
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The House Democrats’ bill is called the Affordable Health Care for America Act, HR 3962. The information below was gathered from the bill’s text, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, an analysis by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, and reporting by The Associated Press.
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The vote was razor close — 220-215. Thirty-nine Democrats, including Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, voted against the measure, while only one Republican, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao of New Orleans, voted for it.
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Here’s a breakdown of some of the key issues and where Missouri senators and representatives stand on pieces of health care reform.
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As House Democrats prepare to vote Saturday on a sweeping bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system, they have picked up an important endorsement today from the 40-million-member AARP, the nation’s largest senior citizens group.
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Four area lawmakers on Thursday outlined their opposition to the House Democrats’ health care legislation that is expected to come to a vote over the weekend.
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House Democratic leaders are pushing for a Saturday vote on their sweeping health care bill, but they are struggling to win over shaky rank-and-file members who could hold up its passage.
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Moderate lawmakers are exerting their outsize influence in the divided Senate to secure changes to health care reform legislation, potentially adding more delays to a bill that has already missed several announced deadlines.
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Safeway says it’s a smart incentive: charging lower premiums for people who lose weight, quit smoking or start exercising. Some medical groups say it’s a new way to exclude pre-existing conditions.
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House Republicans have come up with an answer to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drafting an alternative health care bill that would reward states for reducing the number of uninsured, limit damages in medical malpractice lawsuits and allow small businesses to band together and buy insurance exempt from most state regulation.
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Instead of revolutionizing how care is delivered and paid for, experts say, the legislation being shaped takes a cautious approach to reining in costs.
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The health insurance industry likes to cite figures showing that 87 cents of every dollar in premiums is spent on medical claims.
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As the House moved toward climactic votes on legislation to remake the health care system, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday that middle-income families might be required to pay 15 percent to 18 percent of their income on insurance premiums and co-payments under the proposal.
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For all the controversy over a government-run insurance option, the program outlined in health overhaul legislation likely would play a minuscule role in efforts to expand health care coverage, according to many health care experts and lawmakers.
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The debate over whether to let states opt out of any government-run health insurance plan overlooks a key facet of the health care measures being assembled in Congress: When Washington is done, the shape of any new health care system is likely to be finalized in Lansing and Boise and Baton Rouge.
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A report issued by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office highlights faults with both sides of the argument to create a public health insurance plan.
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Don’t throw a victory party yet. That was the message from former Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle this morning in a speech to health care professionals, students and legislators in Columbia.
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House leaders unveiled their sweeping health bill Thursday, ending months of negotiations to bring together fractious Democrats and setting the stage for the full House to take up the bill next week.

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The Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday made public a sweeping health care overhaul that lawmakers could consider as early as next week. Here are the major provisions of the bill.
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President Obama appealed Thursday to small businesses to support congressional legislation on health insurance reform, saying it will revive America’s entrepreneurial spirit slowed by the high costs of coverage for owners and their employees.
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Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government, aides said Wednesday.

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Consumers would be spared having to pay huge medical bills under Democratic health care legislation that’s moving through Congress, as lawmakers agree on the need to put limits on how much people would pay out of their own pockets.
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Medicaid and other health care expenditures topped Gov. Jay Nixon’s list as he announced $204 million in budget cuts Wednesday.

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The health care crisis in this country is felt nowhere more than in rural America, where a lack of providers and affordable insurance coverage leaves many without needed treatment or in a financial bind.
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The push by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a public health insurance option is creating fresh obstacles for health care legislation in the Senate, despite new poll data suggesting a plurality of Americans support the idea.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s risky decision to bring to the chamber’s floor a health care bill containing a government insurance plan was met with skepticism by moderate Democrats, who said they still do not know whether they could support a public option on a final vote.
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As the health care debate winds its way through Congress, everyone can agree on at least this much: Bringing more young adults into the health care system would balance out the costs for everyone else because the young use the least amount of care.
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The rules for how health insurers use age to set premium rates vary widely from state to state.
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Lawmakers are moving toward creating a new public insurance plan as part of the health overhaul. Here’s what it means.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid announced Monday that he will include a government-backed insurance plan in the chamber’s health care reform legislation, a key concession to liberals who have threatened to oppose a bill without such a public option.
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After claiming for more than a year that it could not do so, the Missouri Department of Social Services finally has obeyed a state law and published a list of employers whose workers get government-funded Medicaid health care coverage.
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Low-income people could get federal assistance, but even a ’public option’ may leave out some individuals.
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Time growing short, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate still face key decisions if they are to achieve President Barack Obama’s goal of passing legislation to remake the nation’s health care system by year’s end.
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Top Senate Democrats are close to finalizing their health bill and could unveil a measure as soon as early this week that would include stiffer penalties on employers who fail to provide health coverage.
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As President Obama’s push for a health care overhaul moves toward its final act, the oft-vilified health insurance industry is on the verge of seeing a plan enacted that largely protects its financial interests.
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And the question of whether people will follow a government order that they carry health insurance - an issue that will help determine whether universal health care is a success or costly failure - will depend on more than the penalty they would pay for refusing, many economists say.
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The high cost of health insurance premiums would continue to put coverage out of reach for millions even if Congress approves legislation President Obama says is intended to ensure "that every American has affordable health care."
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Congressional Democrats working on an overhaul of the U.S. health care system are discussing several different possibilities for a government-run insurance plan to compete against private insurers.
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The Pennsylvania home health care company Linda Bettinazzi runs is charged about $6,800 per worker for health insurance – $2,000 more than the national average for single coverage. One reason: nearly every one of her 175 employees is a woman.
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As Congress nears votes on legislation that would overhaul the health care system, many small businesses say they are facing the steepest rise in insurance premiums they have seen in recent years.
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They often work 40 hours a week — sometimes 80. They talk of being embarrassed or of living in fear of a common cold or twisted ankle, of an accident or illness that in an instant could fell them or a family member and hobble their financial lives for years.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Friday that states might be able to "opt out" of any nationwide government insurance plan, a compromise that she suggested could unify congressional Democrats and enable President Obama to sign a health care overhaul bill later this year.
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House Democratic leaders signaled flexibility Friday on how a proposed government-run health insurance plan would operate in the private market, in an overture to centrist lawmakers who want to limit the government’s impact on the market.
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Business groups won a big victory last week when a key Senate committee voted to place only modest penalties on employers that don’t offer health insurance coverage. But employers are almost certain to face stiffer penalties in the final Senate health care overhaul bill.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, stepping deeper into the health care debate, put his weight Thursday behind a proposal that would create a new government-run insurance plan while giving states the option not to participate.
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House Democrats are coalescing around an $871 billion health care package that would create a government-run insurance plan to help millions of Americans afford coverage, raise taxes on the nation’s richest families and impose an array of new regulations on private insurers, in part by stripping the industry of its long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws.
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In pushing to include a government-run health insurance plan in the health care bill, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is taking a calculated gamble that the 60 members of his caucus could support the plan if it included a way for states to opt out.
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House Democrats have reached a deal on Medicare payments that will secure critical support from heartland and Pacific Coast lawmakers for President Barack Obama’s goal of revamping health care.
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Health insurers insist they’re still committed to getting a health care overhaul bill passed this year. But all around Washington, people are wondering if — or when — the industry will change its mind and try to kill it.
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A report released Thursday says health conditions of residents of north St. Louis are generally worse than those of blacks in other major cities, and, in some case, "mimic Third World indicators."
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Federal legislation to reform health care is still under way, with several different versions of the bill being combined into one.
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If you want to understand how to fix today’s health insurance system, you’d be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance?
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Democrats in the U.S. Congress moved on Wednesday to repeal the health insurance industry’s exemption from antitrust laws, cranking up the pressure in a growing battle over President Barack Obama’s health care reform plans.
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Perplexed by the unusually high rates she was paying for her employer-provided health insurance, NPR member station reporter Sarah Varney set out to better understand the system.
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Last week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14 to 9 to approve its health reform bill - the fifth legislative committee to pass reform legislation. Here’s a rundown of where things stand - and what to expect in coming weeks.
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Supporters of health care reform told senators Tuesday that insurance exchanges are a critical part of proposed health care legislation for small businesses, which are cutting jobs and coverage to keep up with insurance costs.
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Senators battled Tuesday over legislation to forestall a cut in Medicare payments to doctors, trying to seize the advantage in the larger health debate.
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The older you are, the more you usually pay for health coverage, and that’s a difference likely to persist under the sweeping health care legislation that Congress is now considering.
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When Jay Nixon stopped by a Columbia residence in November 2007, he wasn’t shy about talking about expanding the state’s Medicaid program.
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Today is a national day of action on health care reform. Proponents of extending health care benefits to more people, including a system of government-run coverage, planned to take to the streets to mobilize people to call their representatives in Congress to demand action.
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The idea of creating a government-run health insurance plan, once on life support in the Senate, is making a recovery among Democrats writing health care legislation.
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A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.
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U.S. Republicans will seek amendments to parts of the Democrat’s health care reform they oppose, rather than push for an alternative plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion system, a key senator said on Monday.
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The number of Americans worried about losing their current health care coverage keeps rising, even as President Barack Obama and a Democrat-led Congress strive to extend society’s safety net to cover the uninsured, a new poll has found.
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Despite growing frustration with the way health insurers deny medical treatments, major health care bills pending in Congress would give patients little new power to challenge those sometimes life-and-death decisions.
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About one of every eight Missourians lacked health insurance in 2007 and 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Faced with that daunting figure - which could grow amid economic pressures and high unemployment rates - local health leaders are working to expand affordable access to medical care.
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Readers also ask about buying insurance across state lines, increasing competition and allowing national plans.
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No matter what happens with health care reform this fall, employees should expect to pay more for health insurance in 2010 -- especially with co-pays and deductibles.
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Americans may be growing sick of the debate over health care reform. Lobbyists, though, are getting well.

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Young adults aged 19 to 29 are less well-protected by health insurance than any other age group in America: Almost one in three have no insurance — and many more are underinsured.
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Three years ago, Massachusetts passed the most sweeping health care bill in the country, adopting a plan that closely resembles the proposals being considered by Congress. It is a plan that now offers powerful lessons for the whole nation.
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For all the sound and fury about President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul health care, one curious fact stands out: Obama has no plan of his own.
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Don’t be fooled by the turmoil. This is the week the odds tipped ever so slightly in favor of a health overhaul passing Congress.
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Senate Democrats may widen insurance coverage in sweeping health legislation, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said Thursday, but they face a struggle to come up with ways to pay for the extra spending.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned insurance companies on Thursday that health care reform could cost the industry dearly through new fees, fewer regulatory protections and fresh competition from the federal government.
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The insurance industry’s once-unified stance in the health care debate is showing signs of fissure as legislation to overhaul the system moves forward.
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With health care reform bills advancing to the floors of Congress, organized opposition is building from Republicans, insurance companies and some physicians.
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As Congress continues to debate health care reform in Washington, a study by Families USA says about 45,000 people in Missouri lost health insurance coverage in 2009 due to a rise in unemployment.
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Republican Sen. Susan Collins Wednesday signaled a willingness to work with Democrats on health care legislation, adding momentum to President Barack Obama’s push for a bill despite a move by Republican leaders to slow down the debate.
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As the White House and Congressional leaders turned in earnest on Wednesday to working out big differences in the five health care bills, perhaps no issue loomed as a greater obstacle than whether to establish a government-run competitor to the insurance industry.
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By making the case for a health care overhaul, Barack Obama joins the ranks of seven other American presidents who grappled with the issue.
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National surveys and checks with local brokers indicate that 2010 plan costs will jump 10 percent to 12 percent on average, with employees footing more of the bill.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began private meetings Wednesday with fellow Democrats and the White House to merge his chamber’s two health care overhaul bills into a single plan that could win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
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Health care legislation is taking shape in both the House and Senate. Details are still being negotiated and any final bill would have to meld proposals from both houses. A look at various proposals.
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The push to overhaul America’s $2.6 trillion medical system entered a decisive stage Tuesday following a historic vote by the Senate’s Finance Committee.
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After months of wrangling over how to reshape the nation’s health care system, the last of five congressional committees on Tuesday endorsed its sweeping blueprint for expanding coverage and containing costs.
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The Senate Finance Committee advanced President Barack Obama’s health care agenda Tuesday, with a lone Republican vote helping centrist Democrats set a benchmark for the final stage of congressional negotiations.
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US President Barack Obama made reform of the American healthcare system his top priority when he entered the White House. But lawmakers in Congress are finding it difficult to agree on a bill to implement reform.

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If you have ever lost a job and the health benefits that went with it, you have probably heard of COBRA, the program that requires employers to extend your health coverage for a price.
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Missouri’s health care system ranks in the bottom half of state systems nationwide, according to scorecards released last week by a national health care research group. The state’s rank fell slightly from its position in a similar report in 2007.
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As a key Senate committee prepares today to pass its plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, senior Democrats are acknowledging that it may be impossible to provide coverage to all Americans -- a central goal of President Obama and his congressional allies.
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Obama administration officials and Congressional Democrats fired back on Monday at a new insurance industry report that said premiums would climb sharply with the passage of comprehensive health legislation.
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In a blistering new attack, the health insurance industry said Sunday that health care legislation drafted by Senate Democrats would drive up premiums, rather than making coverage more affordable, as the White House contends.
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The doors to the clinic had been locked for over an hour, and the last light in the sky was quickly fading when two eyes appeared in Teresa Moore’s office window, followed by a sharp knock and a glass-muffled plea to be let in: It was a patient.
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Among major industrialized countries, America spends the most on health care -- more than $7,000 a year for each of us, about double what the other countries lay out.
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A key vote on a health care proposal is scheduled for Tuesday. Here are some questions and answers about the vote and the next legislative steps.
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As the health care debate moves to the floor of Congress, most of the serious proposals to fulfill President Obama’s original vow to curb costs have fallen victim to organized interests and parochial politics.
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A new study points to a political paradox in the long, wrenching debate over revamping the healthcare system: Some members of Congress whose constituents stand to gain the most are nonetheless opposing the bill, while others whose constituents will likely pay more for little reward are some of its most ardent supporters.
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Two bodies lay on the sidewalk with chalk marking the outlines of the “corpses.” Yellow police tape blocked off the “crime” scene and kept reporters away. A drive-by shooting? Not at the intersection of Nifong and Forum boulevards; rather a publicity stunt to make a point about the nation’s health care system.

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Proposals that would require Americans to buy health insurance -- central to legislation circulating in both houses of Congress -- are under fire from both ends of the political spectrum, with some liberals saying the penalties are too harsh for those who refuse and conservatives denouncing the whole concept.
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While Congress haggles over the details of a massive health care overhaul, at least a few people will no longer have to worry about losing their health insurance if they get sick: college students who are still covered under their parents’ health plans.
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When it comes to health insurance for his 47 employees, Connelly would like to be just as accommodating. But after offering coverage from the company’s beginnings 30 years ago, Crown C is facing consistently rising costs, up to more than $200,000 - the second largest expense Connelly has besides payroll.
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The industry heavyweights President Obama neutralized through the summer are agitating that the health care bills in Congress violate agreements they made with the White House, leave 25 million Americans uninsured and have the potential to increase medical costs.
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The White House-backed drive for a health care bill picked up steam Thursday, propelled by a favorable report on its price tag and positive comments by some key players.
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In an average year, inflation nibbles away a bit more than 3 percent of our buying power. But for health care, inflation takes a big bite -- about 6 percent a year, year in and year out.
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The latest Senate health bill will cost $829 billion over a decade and slightly reduce the federal budget deficit, congressional budget crunchers said Wednesday, marking a major step forward for Democrats’ plans to overhaul American health care.
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The Senate Finance Committee legislation to revamp the health care system would provide coverage to 29 million uninsured Americans but would still pare future federal deficits by slowing the growth of spending on medical care, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.
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Two years after a 12-year-old Maryland boy died from an untreated tooth infection, low-income kids continue to face barriers to dental care despite state and federal efforts to improve access, government investigators said Wednesday.
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Health care legislation is taking shape in the House and Senate as President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the system to cover millions of uninsured Americans and contain rising costs. A look at various proposals.
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In 2006, attorney Jody Neal-Post tried to get health insurance but was rejected because of treatment — counseling and Valium — she received following a domestic-abuse incident. She says the insurer told her that her medical history made her a high risk, more likely to end up in the emergency room or require additional care.
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Some influential centrist Democrats in the Senate are warming to a compromise that envisions health insurance plans run by state governments, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added his voice Tuesday to a small group of Republicans expressing support for a Democratic-led overhaul plan.
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Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine worries that the bill would require people to buy insurance they cannot afford. Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas fears that the bill would be too costly for the government.
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Congressional efforts to provide health insurance will have to go further in order to reach some Joplin residents now going without insurance.
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The health overhaul bill expected to emerge this week from the Senate Finance Committee was supposed to be the one to win at least some Republican backing.
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Despite all the disagreement in Washington, every proposal now before Congress to overhaul the nation’s health care system includes creation of an insurance “exchange” — a marketplace that would operate something like a Travelocity Web site for insurance policies.
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Senators learned Monday that a committee vote on health care reform will be pushed back to later this week, and perhaps into next week, as they await an estimate on how much the overhaul would cost.
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Health care will once again be a big topic of discussion when the legislature returns to Jefferson City in January, but that discussion could be shaped in large part by how health care legislation plays out in Washington.
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People who don’t get health coverage through their employer or the government sometimes buy coverage directly from insurers on the individual market, also called the non-group market.
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Like many teenage boys, Evan Fisher, 15, does some things that make his mom more than a little anxious.
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Hospitals and insurance companies are pushing back against changes to the latest Senate health care bill that ease the penalties for Americans who don’t carry health insurance.
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As Democrats prepare to take up health care legislation on the floor of the Senate and the House, they are facing tough choices about two competing priorities.
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"We simply don’t know if more is better. We do know, however, that more is terribly expensive and is pushing the nation’s medical-care system toward a major crisis." The year was 1986, almost a generation ago.
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Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides health care coverage for low-income people — primarily children, pregnant women, parents, the disabled and the elderly.
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He’s worked to sell it to voters on the stump.
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The nation’s governors are emerging as a formidable lobbying force as health care reform moves through Congress and states overburdened by the recession brace for the daunting prospect of providing coverage to millions of low-income residents.
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Lela Petersen thinks about health care a lot these days. She’s a small business owner who pays $1,150 a month to an HMO, covering her and her husband. Petersen doesn’t have any other option, but her 94-year-old mother, Gracie Scarrow, is another story.
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Any health care overhaul that Congress and President Obama enact is likely to have as its centerpiece a fundamental reform: Insurers would not be allowed to reject individuals or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history.
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Mental health advocates have joined the immense lobbying effort in Washington on health care reform. If they are successful, advocates say, reform legislation could be a huge step forward for the mentally ill.
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Many middle-class Americans would still struggle to pay for health insurance despite efforts by President Barack Obama and Democrats to make coverage more affordable.
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With the Senate Finance Committee set to approve its health care bill this week, Democrats are tantalizingly close to bringing legislation that would make sweeping changes in the nation’s health care system to the floor of both houses of Congress.
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Women’s health groups, legal organizations and some female senators are fighting for a host of little-known provisions in the health care legislation being debated in Congress that they say will dramatically improve health care and insurance coverage for women.
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Not all of America’s 46 million uninsured people can be considered victims of a system that excludes them financially or because of pre-existing conditions.
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Nearly 46 million people in America are without health insurance. But by some estimates, as many as one-third of them are what you might call "voluntarily uninsured." These are people who could afford coverage but don’t buy it.
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A Fayette family practice physician will be one of about 60 doctors appearing tomorrow at the White House to advocate for health care reform.
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After a marathon session that ran well past midnight, the Senate Finance Committee on Friday passed a major milestone in its work on legislation to remake the health care system and provide coverage to millions of the uninsured.
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The health care reform bills competing for votes in Congress are attempts to counteract the swiftly rising costs and rapidly growing ranks of uninsured Americans that threaten the nation’s medical system according to the Missouri Foundation for Health.
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The Senate Finance Committee planned to finish work on sweeping health care legislation early this morning and is expected to take a final vote next week, as Senate leaders forged ahead to the next painstaking steps: merging that bill with an earlier version written by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s committee, then moving the combined package to the Senate floor.
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Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee voted Thursday to encourage limits on the compensation of insurance executives, responding to charges that expanding health insurance coverage would enrich insurance companies.
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The long quest to reform the nation’s health care system entered uncharted legislative territory early Friday when a key Senate panel wrapped up work on its bill and House and Senate leaders prepared for historic floor debates.
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Two State Senators are taking part in rallies, this weekend, to urge passage of legislation requiring health insurance companies to cover autism.
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Historic health care legislation could be on the floor of both houses of Congress as early as mid-October as Democrats work to answer President Barack Obama’s call for greater protections for those who have unreliable insurance or no coverage at all.
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On the sixth day of a marathon debate in the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) declared that his panel has the votes to approve a package of reforms that would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack insurance.
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The recession is driving up enrollment in Medicaid at higher than expected rates, threatening gargantuan state budget gaps even as Congress and the White House seek to expand the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled, according to a survey released Wednesday.
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A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday adopted a measure aimed at rewarding healthy behavior in a sweeping health care overhaul sought by President Barack Obama as lawmakers pushed to complete the legislation.
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Most Americans would pay higher taxes to fund health care reforms that provide the best quality of care, but only a minority expects Washington to deliver it, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
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If the U.S. Congress fails to reform health care, states will spend more on their programs for the poor than they currently pay out, according to a new report on Wednesday.
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Lawmakers are trying to crunch 2,079 pages of health insurance overhaul proposals into a sweeping new law. As they do, some key decisions could impact your wallet and your coverage.
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After an intense debate that captured the essence of the national struggle over health care, a pivotal Senate committee on Tuesday rejected two Democratic proposals to create a government insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
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Congressional Democrats this week will push toward showdowns on two of the toughest issues in the health care debate: whether to create a government alternative to private insurance, and how to pay the approximately $1-trillion cost of the overhaul.
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Young adults remain some of the strongest supporters of a health care overhaul, but many acknowledge they don’t understand proposals that will likely saddle them with higher costs.
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Federal health reforms under discussion in Congress have spurred hundreds of questions. Starting today, a team of Free Press reporters will answer your questions.
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Most Americans — 162 million — get health insurance through their employers. Sixty percent of employers offer health benefits, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
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Dave Koenig gets private insurance through his employer and couldn’t be happier. A conservative, he thinks private health care is the way to go, but he supports some changes to the insurance industry to protect patients from losing their coverage.
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Call it a health care gamble: the decision by some people to opt out of health insurance, paying cash for routine care while playing the odds that an accident or catastrophic illness won’t plunge them into financial ruin.
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Federally funded health centers, originally created to serve the poor, are seeing a surge of patients as more Americans struggle financially.
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The health system overhaul proposed by Sen. Max Baucus would create millions of new insurance customers without subjecting health insurers to government-run competition - two key victories for the much-maligned industry.
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More than 25 million Americans have Swiss-cheese health insurance: It’s full of holes. Experts call them the "underinsured."
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People who are described as underinsured have health benefits that don’t adequately cover their medical expenses.
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Capitol Hill lawmakers who are crafting a health care reform package are being urged to consider the effects of reform on public hospitals.
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When it comes to their health care, no one is completely happy. Everyone has a complaint. And nobody understands the way the current system works, only that it doesn’t work very well.
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Araceli Jurado of Kansas City, Kan., has a kidney stone so large it threatens to destroy her kidney. She needs surgery, but she’s uninsured and she can’t afford the operation.
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Baucus has promised to resume committee work Tuesday. But the fight is increasingly shifting away from him and onto the Senate floor, where 99 other independent-minded lawmakers are already scheming about how to put their stamp on what could be the most significant piece of domestic-policy legislation in a generation.
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The health bill by Sen. Max Baucus went through four days of debate this week that revealed deep divides over how to fix the U.S. health care system.
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A proposal to reform America’s health care system by forcing everybody to buy into it has touched a nerve.
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Business is parting from its traditional allies in the Republican Party on health care as companies and big corporate lobbyists lend tentative support to a congressional overhaul that conservative lawmakers staunchly oppose.
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Advocates for a public insurance plan — the idea that has generated the most passion in the high-decibel health care debate — are pressing for a crucial test vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
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Instructor Jane Bennett tries to get the crowd, nearly all of whom are on Medicaid, to spend two hours learning about their children’s health.
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In the drive to bring health coverage to almost every American, lawmakers have largely rejected restrictions on how much insurers can charge, sparking fears that consumers will continue to face the skyrocketing premium increases of recent years.
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Slogging through a second day of work on legislation intended to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the Senate Finance Committee wrestled Wednesday with politically volatile proposals to squeeze money out of Medicare but largely delayed confronting the most difficult issues before it.
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Slogging through a second day of work on legislation intended to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the Senate Finance Committee wrestled Wednesday with politically volatile proposals to squeeze money out of Medicare.
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Assurances from the U.S. Congress that states will not be saddled with extra costs from a nationwide health care reform plan have done little to relieve the nervousness rippling through state legislatures and governors’ offices.
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Will your insurance premiums go up? Will your taxes? Will your Medicare coverage stay the same?
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Proposals would make buying insurance more affordable, reduce penalties and limit those hit by a new tax.
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The nation’s uninsured — a growing class of people whose recession-fed ranks have swelled to 46.3 million — are central to the health care debate in Washington and the questions about how and whether to get them covered are as vexing and emotional as they come.
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Vice President Joe Biden said new data showing health insurance premiums rising faster in every state than wages or inflation highlight the need for health care legislation.
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Medicare is the federal program that covers many of the health costs for people age 65 and older, as well as people younger than 65 who are permanently disabled. Within these groups, no one is excluded because of income or pre-existing conditions.
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Whether or not to create a new government-run health plan may be the biggest source of discord in the ongoing debate over a health overhaul. At the same time, however, many of the nation’s most satisfied health care consumers are recipients of an existing government health plan: Medicare.
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The Census Bureau reports that 17 percent of the U.S. population under age 65 was without health insurance last year. Texas had the highest rate at 26.5 percent, and Florida was second at 24.8 percent.
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As the Senate Finance Committee begins reworking Sen. Max Baucus’ health care bill today, the focus will be on keeping the final price tag below $900 billion - a target considered crucial to winning over moderate Democratic votes.
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Sen. Max Baucus said he would revamp his health overhaul proposal to ease the financial burden for middle-income Americans and pare back a key tax increase, responding to critics on Capitol Hill who called the measure too harsh.
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A greater percentage of residents in most of the metro region have health insurance than the average population in Missouri, Illinois or even the nation, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Monday.
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Parents in the crowd wiped their eyes as the legislator told how he is fighting for therapy that will help a father take his son to a ballgame, a mother enjoy a movie with her daughter and a family go out to dinner.
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Although cast as a tax on gold-plated insurance policies for the well-heeled, it has prompted anxiety among the middle class.
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Neil Dukas knew little about health insurance because he had always been healthy. When he and his wife bought a high-deductible policy in 2008, he didn’t know the difference between a deductible and an out-of-pocket limit. He simply assumed that when he needed care, the insurer would cover it.
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According to the Census Bureau, in 2008, more than 46 million Americans — about 15 percent of the population — did not have health insurance. Because of the recession, many experts believe the number is now larger.
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Fernando Arriola spends his days keeping track of four or five construction projects, and his nights praying for good health. The New Orleans home builder is one of the 46 million people in this country who don’t have health insurance.
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The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) is the "marketplace" for full-time governmental employees and qualified retirees to select health and dental insurance offered by insurance companies and employee associations.
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"This is what keeps me alive," says 13-year-old Toni Bethea, as she picks a tiny glass bottle off the kitchen counter of her home in Washington, D.C. The clear liquid inside is insulin. Toni has Type 1 diabetes.
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As proposals ricochet around Washington and forums held by legislators locally and around the country provoke deep passions on all sides, a roundtable will be held next week in Joplin so residents can get a diagnosis of health care reform.
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Some 25 complaints since 2006 from southwest Missouri health care providers and hospitals about health insurance reimbursements will be investigated by the state Department of Insurance, state officials said.
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It’s not exactly a political or town hall rally, but there will be plenty of fervor this Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at a special "Show-Me Coverage Autism Insurance Rally" at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O’Fallon, Mo.
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Lawmakers in both parties raised concerns Thursday that the health care reform bill offered by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus a day earlier would impose too high a cost on middle-class Americans and said they will seek to change the legislation to ease that potential burden.
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Consumers, businesses and government have to divide a bill that now tops $2.5 trillion. The question is how.
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Senators of both parties said Thursday that they would seek significant changes in a Democratic proposal to tax generous high-cost health insurance policies.
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One day after physicians suffered a pair of setbacks in a health care bill unveiled by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), President Obama moved Thursday to ease the pain by accelerating a $25 million program aimed at softening the pinch of medical malpractice lawsuits.
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Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year - one every 12 minutes - in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) on Wednesday introduced his long-awaited health overhaul bill. Here are some questions and answers about how its provisions would affect consumers.
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Princeton economist and professor Uwe Reinhardt has spent his life giving out grades. So much so that he gives them out by instinct, even to things that don’t usually get grades.
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The latest health bill to emerge from the Senate contains a slew of measures designed to control costs. But it would be years before they kick in, and many may only put a dent in spending.
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A year-long effort by senators to draft a bipartisan overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Wednesday yielded the only congressional proposal that would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans while making good on President Obama’s pledge not to add "one dime" to budget deficits.
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In an important victory for the insurance industry, Senator Max Baucus’s legislative proposal does not call for a government-run health plan that would directly compete with private insurers.
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The major new health care overhaul bill that landed in the Senate on Wednesday sets the lines for a fall showdown over taxes, spending and coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) released the crucial moderate alternative Wednesday in the struggle to refashion America’s health care system, a $856-billion bill that includes a mix of sweeping new insurance regulations but no government-run plan.
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On the surface, it appears that no one is happy with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) - and that may be the best news President Obama has had in months.
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Insurance companies that provide medical malpractice coverage in Missouri are showing a profit due to fewer claims.
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President Barack Obama tapped into a large vein of public support when he suggested recently that he is open to reforming medical malpractice laws.
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Banks and insurers are battling for tax-advantaged health savings accounts to remain as one of the options in health care reform.
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While this year’s veto session passed without any substantive action, lawmakers are bracing for what could be a very difficult battle next year over the state’s budget.
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Though Americans who already have medical coverage may be wary of change, a new survey indicates that they may be hard-pressed to escape it - even in the absence of health care reform.
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President Barack Obama and his congressional allies have made insuring nearly all Americans a major goal of overhauling the nation’s health care system.
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As health care legislation advances through Congress, the young adults who were so vital to President Obama’s election are emerging as a significant beneficiary of his top domestic priority, but they are also likely to play a major role in funding any reform.
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The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday that he could not support sweeping health care legislation drafted in more than three months of bipartisan negotiations by the chairman of the panel, and several liberal Democrats criticized the bill from the other side of the political spectrum.
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Missouri lawmakers heard competing testimony today on the cost of requiring health insurance companies to cover the treatment of children with autism.
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Some rank-and-file Senate Democrats are voicing concerns about sweeping health legislation being crafted by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, citing what they describe as excessive burdens placed on some families and concerns over financing for the $880 billion package.
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Two of the three Republicans in a small group trying to forge a bipartisan compromise on health care have requested numerous major changes in a proposal drafted by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, reducing the chances that he can win their support.
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Among all the players in the health care debate, doctors may be the least understood about where they stand on some of the key issues around changing the health care system. Now, a new survey finds some surprising results: A large majority of doctors say there should be a public option.
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The difference between a government program that works and one that fails spectacularly can be razor thin. A few words here, a loophole there, and you can turn a boon for the consumer into a windfall for big business.
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In the fight over a health care overhaul, Maryland’s experience with setting hospital rates suggests the federal government could realize savings on health spending, but at a price of more regulation for health providers.
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Nonprofit organizations say they are upset that Congress and the Obama administration have not addressed their rising health care costs in the various health care proposals being floated on Capitol Hill.
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Melissa J. Whitaker has one very compelling reason to keep up with the health care legislation being written in Washington: her second transplanted kidney.
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