In the very near future the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. One likely outcome is the court strikes down the individual mandate but leaves the rest of the law intact. Here is what eliminating just the mandate would actually mean for policy. Reduce the cost of the Affordable [...]

Health insurance premiums for a typical employer-provided family policy grew by an incredible 9 percent this year according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not only have premiums increased for employers, but the employee cost sharing has gone up as well. Compared to only a few years ago, there has been a big increase [...]

Last week the California Assembly narrowly passed AB52 which will give state regulators the ability to reject unjustifiably large premium increases from private health insurers. The bill still needs to pass the state Senate before it would become law but clearly it has the health insurance industry scared.

It is another year for record profits for the health insurance industry. From the New York Times: The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care. The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest [...]

Jonathan Gruber, the economist paid by the White House to consult on the health care reform law, has put out a paper for the Commonwealth Fund that reaches the conclusion that the law is pretty good. What is interesting is that even this supporter and part architect of the law is forced to admit that [...]

The cost crisis in our health care system simply can’t be overstated. The rapid growth in cost is the driving force behind our projected long-term public debt and the growth in private health insurance premiums threaten to cripple private industry. The Commonwealth Fund is out with a new study showing just how quickly the situation [...]