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Health Insurance / Medical Insurance News From Medical News Today

How To Find Suitable Private Health Insurance Private health insurance is the main source of health coverage for the majority of people in the United States. Approximately 58% of all Americans have private health care coverage. For elderly citizens and eligible children and families from low-income households, public programs are the primary source of health cover. Public programs include Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP... February 20, 2012 2:00 PM Study Finds Ending Individual Mandate Would Not Dramatically Hike Insurance Prices A new RAND Corporation study concludes that eliminating a key part of health care reform that requires all Americans to have health insurance would sharply lower the number of people gaining coverage, but would not dramatically increase the cost of buying policies through new insurance exchanges. The study comes as the U.S... February 19, 2012 12:00 AM Improved Access To Care For Young Adults Allowed To Stay On Parents' Health Insurance Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that laws permitting children to stay on their parents' health insurance through age 26 result in improved access to health care compared to states without those laws. This analysis indicates the potential positive impact of a key provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA)... February 13, 2012 2:00 AM Although The Financial Burden Of Prescription Drugs Is Dropping, Costs Remain A Challenge For Many The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance, according to a new RAND Corporation study... February 10, 2012 12:00 AM Justifying Insurance Coverage For Orphan Drugs How can insurers justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient per year on "orphan drugs" - extremely expensive medications for rare conditions that are mostly chronic and life-threatening - when this money could provide greater overall health benefit if spread out among many other patients? Those spending decisions reflect the "rule of rescue," the value that o... February 09, 2012 1:00 AM Study Examines Misconceptions Of Who Picks Up Tab When Patients Walk Out There are ways in which patients who leave the hospital against medical advice wind up paying for that decision. Being saddled with the full cost of their hospital stay, however, is not one of them. Insurance companies know this. Patients who walk out may know this. But many physicians, according to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, do not... February 08, 2012 12:00 AM Study Reveals 1 In 10 Canadians Cannot Afford Prescription Drugs One in ten Canadians cannot afford to take their prescription drugs as directed, according to an analysis by researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. The study, published in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) is the first to examine the relationship between drug insurance and the use of prescription drugs in Canada... January 17, 2012 2:00 AM In Hospital In-Patient Setting, Uninsured Receive Same Quantity, Value Of Imaging Services As Insured Insurance status doesn't affect the quantity (or value) of imaging services received by patients in a hospital, in-patient setting, according to a study in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Approximately 51 million Americans, or 16.7 percent of the population, were without health insurance for some or all of 2009... January 09, 2012 12:00 AM Kaiser Permanente Study Finds Continuous Health Coverage Essential For Patients Managing Diabetes When patients with diabetes experience interruptions in health - insurance coverage, they are less likely to receive the screening tests and vaccines they need to protect their health. A new study finds that this is true even when patients receive free or reduced-cost medical care at federally funded safety net clinics... January 06, 2012 12:00 AM Medicare And Private Insurance Spending Similar Throughout Texas Variations in health care spending by Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) are similar throughout the state despite previous research, which found significant spending differences between the private and commercial sector in McAllen, Texas... December 22, 2011 1:00 AM