• Weekly Line: Health care is on the ballot in November—and this time, Democrats aren't dodging the issue

  September 21, 2018
  

  An autumnal chill is (almost) in the air, your favorite TV shows are returning to prime time—and in yet another biannual rite of fall, you're probably seeing a flurry of campaign ads as we enter the final stretch of the midterm Congressional elections.
  

• HHS plans to cut funds for cancer and other health care programs. Here's why.

  September 21, 2018
  

  HHS Secretary Alex Azar says he plans to redistribute up to $266 million—including $13.3 million from the National Cancer Institute, as well as other funds from programs for maternal health, mental health, substance misuse, and women's shelters—to cover increasing costs for the department's Unaccompanied Alien Children program.

• Senate committee delays vote on Supreme Court nominee amid sexual assault allegation

  September 21, 2018
  

  The Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a committee vote previously scheduled for this week on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as lawmakers grapple with how to handle sexual assault allegations that surfaced late last week.

• $100K per year of life gained: That's the cap that CVS is letting insurers place on drugmakers' prices

  September 21, 2018
  

  To keep drug prices down, CVS launched a new program to allow self-funded insurers to exclude coverage for treatments that cost more than $100,000 per quality-adjusted life year gained, but the move is sparking intense industry debate.

• A majority of VA medical centers see quality improvements, VA finds

  September 21, 2018
  

  Veteran Affairs' quarterly Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) report shows 103 out of 146 VAMCs saw improvements in overall quality, with five VAMCs reporting large enough improvements in care quality for VA to remove them from a list of its lowest performing hospitals.

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• Trump might stop cost-sharing reduction payments. What would that mean?

  August 7, 2017
  

  President Trump has repeatedly threatened to halt payments that reimburse insurers for reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income enrollees on the Affordable Care Act's exchanges. Here's what you need to know about the payments and what could happen if Trump halts them.

• Amid uncertainty on health care reform, three insurers announce exchange exits

  August 4, 2017
  

  The insurers say uncertainty surrounding the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing reduction payments are a reason for their exits from exchange markets in California, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

• Insurers attribute proposed 2018 premium increases to ACA uncertainty, KFF finds

  August 10, 2017
  

  Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says, "In most of the country, the [individual health insurance] market would be stable if not for significant uncertainty about what the ...Trump administration will do."

• US News names 152 'Best Hospitals'

  August 8, 2017
  

  Mayo Clinic tops U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" for the second year in a row.

• ACA repeal has been declared 'dead' countless times. What would really mean it's failed?

  August 1, 2017
  

  The conventional wisdom is that under Senate rules, the GOP's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act will be officially "dead" if it doesn't pass by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. But a former Senate parliamentarian tells American Health Line that things aren't so simple.

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