Kaiser Health News posted a blog in 2009 that talks about a Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan that was once proposed by President Richard Nixon. I’ve noticed that this is being passed around the internet right now, shortly before the Supreme Court reveals its ruling regarding the Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama is not the only President of the United States who showed interest in creating a better health insurance system. Kaiser Health News has a transcription of something similar that was proposed by President Richard Nixon in 1974. It is called “President Richard Nixon’s Special Message to the Congress … Continue reading →

It can be really scary to be diagnosed with cancer. Treatment can include either medications or a chemotherapy drip. Which treatment is given should be decided by the person and his or her doctor. People who use Medicare, however, are finding that their insurer is making that decision for them. No one wants to hear their doctor say that they have been diagnosed with a form of cancer. It is scary, and the treatment can be extremely expensive. Those who have a good health insurance plan often find that they still get stuck paying many medical bills out of pocket. … Continue reading →

The Medicare program has been, essentially, sitting on Medicare claims in order to give lawmakers more time to pass certain extensions. Unfortunately, the program cannot continue to do that indefinitely. The backlog of claims could be more than the program can actually handle. This whole situation has a longer history than you might be aware of. During the Spring and Summer of 2010, there was a situation that has been referred to as the “Medicare doc fix”. At that time, there was the potential that doctors and hospitals would face a 21% cut on their reimbursement for treating Medicare payments. … Continue reading →

A federal health care law, that is part of the Affordable Care Act, is about to run out out funding. The law was designed to help employers be able to afford to offer health benefits to their retired workers. If the funding goes away, this could leave younger retirees completely without health insurance. It is called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. This program was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. It provided some funding that would enable employers to afford to continue to offer their retired employees a health insurance plan. Specifically, this was designed to help a … Continue reading →

The state of California spends less per person on health care than do the majority of the other states. This may sound like a good thing, but really isn’t. California isn’t especially efficient with utilizing the money it spends on health care. Instead, the state has around 7 million uninsured people. The discovery that a state spends less on health care, per person, than most of the other states spend doesn’t necessarily mean that the state has become amazingly efficient with budgeting, or with making sure that people get the care that they need. California, for example, is among the … Continue reading →