Acumentra Health has renewed its contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to serve as Oregon’s Medicare quality improvement organisation….

Never one to be deterred, Rudd set his sights on an alternative, with lots of moving parts, new agencies, GST clawbacks, additional funding and unrealistic promises. This was his vision that would assure his success in last year’s election. With most state governments of the same political persuasion at that stage, a deal of sorts was done, save for Western Australia where Premier Colin Barnett...

I was skeptical. I knew from my two decades as an insurance company executive that the industry often conducts duplicitous charm offensives, assuring the public that insurers support consumer-focused reform while executives work surreptitiously to block any reform that might curtail profits. So I was not shocked when I found out that Joan Gardner, executive director of state services for the Blue Cross...

House Republicans called Tuesday for repealing a panel created by the new health care law they say will lead to rationing – highlighting a controversy they hope to use against Democrats in next year’s elections. Democrats included an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) in the law as a way to rein in Medicare costs. But now, some are joining in GOP criticisms that the panel will make...

Begin with what everyone knows. Health care costs and health insurance costs are climbing more than twice as fast as the cost of living and have been for years. There is no need for numbers to prove that statement. Just ask anyone who buys health insurance on his own, any employer trying to take care of his employees, and any employee whose wages are flat because of the rising cost of insurance. There...

Health-care spending in the United States is on an unsustainable path. Because it is growing much faster than our incomes and our economy, it threatens to dominate the budgets of households, businesses, and governments, crowding out other priorities.  As we contemplate the future and debate what to do, we need to recognize that we face a fork in the road. One path leads to a privatized system....

Much of the country already dislikes Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which accomplishes little to either protect patients or make health care affordable.  Voters resent the individual mandate, and there is a good incentive to not comply despite the tax penalty; insurance companies won’t be able to decline coverage of preexisting conditions, including...

Much of the country already dislikes Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which accomplishes little to either protect patients or make health care affordable.  Voters resent the individual mandate, and there is a good incentive to not comply despite the tax penalty; insurance companies won’t be able to decline coverage of preexisting conditions, including...

Reuters In this June 15, 2009, photo, President Obama arrives to deliver remarks on the health care system at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in Chicago….

The victory has left Democrats vowing to hammer away at the controversial plan throughout the 2012 campaigns, which they hope will allow them to retain the White House and Senate and regain the House majority. Ryan and other Republicans, on the other hand, say their message was distorted and demagogued, and that when people understand what the Ryan plan will actually do for the national healthcare...