Now it's up to Congress. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced a final Medicare regulation that will trigger a 10 percent cut in payments to doctors Jan. 1 if lawmakers don't get their act together to stop it. Read more »
A leading national health insurer announced that it has agreed to seemingly tough state oversight of what could be a hot new tool in the consumer marketplace: ranking doctors based on their efficiency and quality. Read more »
At a press briefing, U.S. insurance industry officials sought to sharpen the focus of health system reform on private sector approaches, insisting they favor universal coverage while pointing to European countries that require citizens to buy private coverage as potential overhaul models. Read more »
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that cost is not the reason many of the 47 million Americans without health insurance have not tried to get it; it's simply because they choose not to have it. Read more »
The Senate passed a revised children's health insurance bill that President Bush has threatened to veto, just as he did an earlier version. But Congress may not give him that chance right away. Read more »
Regulations proposed by the Bush administration would slash inner city health care, end programs to help mentally ill adults function on their own, and end school-based efforts to help seriously ill and poor children enroll in Medicaid, witnesses said at a hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Read more »