The Obama administration ordered a health insurance company to rescind the rate increases it sought or justify its refusal to do so.

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White House Calls Increases in Health Insurance Rates Too High

It was a first for Texas: a state office devoted to consumers struggling to find affordable health insurance coverage. With funds from the federal health reform law, the Texas Consumer Health Assistance Program launched last January. A $2.8 million grant allowed the state to hire nine employees to staff a toll-free hotline. More than 6,000 Texans called in during the past year, seeking advice on how to find affordable coverage, or help filling out an insurance application, or fighting a denied claim. The new employees traversed the state, hosting more than 160 events aimed at making Texans — a quarter of whom lack insurance — more aware of coverage options. Read full article > >

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Texas Consumer Health Assistance Program to close after losing federal funding

The Obama administration will give states broad latitude to define the minimum benefits that many health insurance policies will be required to offer under the 2010 health-care law, officials announced Friday. The plan sparked criticism from interest groups on all sides of the issue. Consumer advocates worried that millions of Americans could end up with insurance substantially less comprehensive than the law’s drafters intended. Representatives of employers and insurers warned of an opposite scenario: A state could make the benefits package so comprehensive that the resulting plans would be prohibitively expensive. Read full article > >

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Minimum essential health benefits will be largely set by states

Now that the sweeping defense authorization bill for 2012 has passed the Senate and House, the fight over Tricare, the health insurance plan for the military, has reached a truce — for the moment. House and Senate negotiators are working out differences in the defense authorization bill before it goes to President Obama, but Tricare is not among the contested issues. Read full article > >

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Battle over military health-care premiums slows — for now

Mitt Romney runs for president with the eye of a venture capitalist. He sees the profit in certain positions, discards those that are no longer profitable and moves on. He was pro-choice when it did him some good, instituted a health insurance plan that he now denounces and once supported amnesty for some illegal immigrants. Richard III offered his kingdom for a horse. Romney offers his principles for some votes in Iowa. Read full article > >

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Mitt Romney’s venture-capital politics

Everyone knows that President Obama has a problem with his political base heading into 2012. Except that he doesn’t. One of the most persistent story lines for the president has been that the liberal left has grown increasingly dissatisfied with his actions (or inaction) on some of its priorities — including single-payer health insurance, the extension of the George W. Bush tax cuts and whether to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Read full article > >

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President Obama’s base of support remains solid heading into 2012

Open season for the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program has been deceptively dull. With the average increase for health insurance programs at a modest 3.8 percent for 2012, complaints by workers also have been modest, even though their salaries are frozen through the end of next year. Perhaps they remember this year’s 7.3 percent hike. Read full article > >

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Open enrollment for federal health benefits starts quietly

A federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the 2010 health-care law on Tuesday, granting the Obama Administration its fourth win at the appellate level as it seeks ultimate affirmation of the law from the Supreme Court. In a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with a lower court judge’s finding that Congress had the authority to enact the law’s requirement that virtually all Americans obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. Read full article > >

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Appeals court upholds health-care law

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Friday that he would lower the federal debt by transforming Medicare and Social Security and reshaping or eliminating other costly government programs. Romney unveiled a blueprint to overhaul entitlement programs popular with seniors, saying he would gradually raise the retirement age for Medicare and Social Security. Under his plan, future retirees would have the option of staying on traditional Medicare or purchasing health insurance from private companies through “premium supports,” or vouchers. Read full article > >

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Romney: Overhaul Medicare and Social Security to reduce debt

The good news and the bad news is that health insurance premiums for non-postal federal employees and all retirees will increase an average of 3.8 percent in 2012. The increase certainly is much lower than the 7.3 percent jump for this year. But when your pay is frozen, as federal pay is through this year and next, the premium boost amounts to another hole in your wallet. The 3.8 percent is the average overall increase, including the government and employee shares,” according to the Office of Personnel Management. “The employee increase will average 3.5 percent.” Read full article > >

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Federal Diary: Health insurance costs rise at lower rate, but they still rise

During a period when federal pay is frozen for two years, the average increase in employees’ health insurance premiums for 2012 will be the lowest since 2008. The 3.8 percent hike is less than half of the 7.3 percent increase in premiums for 2011, the Office of Personnel Management announced Tuesday. Read full article > >

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Federal health insurance rates lowest since ’08

IBM supercomputer Watson made headlines a few months ago by beating two “Jeopardy!” champions on national television. Now, Watson has a new gig: doctor. On Monday, health insurance company Wellpoint announced a partnership with IBM to “develop Watson-based solutions to help patient care through the delivery of up-to-date, evidence-based health care for millions of Americans.” Patients are unlikely to have a Dr. Watson, rather, their human physicians would consult with the computer’s database in treating patients. Read full article > >

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Meet Dr. Watson: ‘Jeopardy’-winning super computer heads into health care

In a surprise move, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court based in Virginia has tossed out one of the most prominent challenges to the health reform law. This is the first appeals court to throw out a case for lack of standing after a lower court had ruled on the merits. It leaves the Affordable Care Act with an even scorecard in the courts, with one appeals court ruling in favor of the health-care law’s constitutionality and one against it. Both cases have centered on the law’s individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014. Read full article > >

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Appeals court rejects Va. challenge to federal health-care law

What would your health insurance cover if you got pregnant? How much could you expect to pay out of pocket if you needed treatment for diabetes? How do your plan’s benefits compare with another company’s? Starting as soon as March, consumers could have a better handle on such questions, under new rules aimed at decoding the fine print of health insurance plans. Regulations proposed by the Obama administration on Wednesday would require all private health insurance plans to provide current and prospective customers a brief, standardized summary of policy costs and benefits. Read full article > >

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New health insurance rules would let consumers compare plans in ‘plain English’

A federal appeals court Friday struck down a central provision of the 2010 health-care law, ruling that Congress overstepped its authority by requiring virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance. The divided three-judge panel from the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta is the first appellate court to rule against any portion of the statute. The decision marks a significant victory for the 26 Republican attorneys general and governors who challenged the health-care law on behalf of their states. Read full article > >

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Appeals court strikes down health-care law’s insurance mandate