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NCQA awards Commendable Accreditation to Centene's Florida subsidiary, Sunshine Health

Centene Corporation today announced that its wholly-owned Florida subsidiary, Sunshine Health, was elevated to Commendable Accreditation by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for its Medical Managed Assistance and Child Welfare programs.

18 Sep 2014

Viewpoints: Election victory could bring difficult decisions for GOP; Burwell 'presses reset'

But if the GOP controls both the Senate and the House, its members will be under pressure to govern. At least in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to move major legislation, they'll even have an incentive to compromise .… But that won't be easy.

18 Sep 2014

State highlights: Report: Hospitals ill-prepared for Sandy; Iowa Supreme Court lets teleabortion go on while it decides

When Superstorm Sandy slammed into the Northeast nearly two years ago, hospitals found themselves dealing with surges in patients, lost power supplies and employees who couldn't get to work -- problems that a new federal report finds they were not prepared to handle (Mulvihill, 9/17).

18 Sep 2014

Senate hearing previews upcoming debate about future of CHIP

A Senate hearing on Tuesday set the stage for a coming debate over whether the federal government should continue financing a popular health insurance program for lower-income children who are now eligible for new coverage options under the Affordable Care Act (Goodnough, 9/16).

18 Sep 2014

Parties' disputes on health law fading to 'background noise' in campaign

Republicans are moving beyond their criticisms of the law in the midterm fights. Also, news outlets examine what a Republican-controlled Senate might focus on and how expanded health coverage is not working to the Democrats' advantage in Kentucky.

18 Sep 2014

GAO warns of security risks in HealthCare.gov

Despite improvements, the federal health insurance website has continuing security holes that put consumers' personal information at risk, the nonpartisan watchdog agency said in a report Tuesday.

18 Sep 2014

Calif. hospitals, insurer join forces to make new health system

Some say the move, which will include UCLA Health and Cedars-Sinai, is aimed at Kaiser Permanente and is being made to hold down health costs.

18 Sep 2014

Medicaid expansion, uninsured coverage issues continue to simmer in Virginia

More than six out of 10 Virginia voters support an expansion of Medicaid benefits to cover the estimated 400,000 state residents in the coverage gap, according to a new survey released on the eve of a special session of the Virginia General Assembly to discuss the issue. But nearly half of Virginians surveyed have doubts that the federal government would fully fund its share of the program, according to the poll, conducted by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University (Nolan, 9/17).

17 Sep 2014

High impact health interventions reduce maternal and child mortality in poor countries

New studies have uncovered the specific interventions and advances that have led to the success with these at-risk populations in the poorest countries.

17 Sep 2014

State highlights: N.Y. sues drugmaker over Alzheimer's drug switch; Ariz. Republican resigns over Medicaid remarks

New York State's attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop a pharmaceutical company from forcing patients with Alzheimer's disease to switch to a new version of a widely used drug. The lawsuit contends that the switch is designed to blunt competition from low-priced generic versions of the medication (Pollack, 9/15).

17 Sep 2014

Missing paperwork puts coverage at risk for tens of thousands of people

According to the Obama administration, as many as 115,000 people could lose the new insurance they obtained under the health law because they did not prove they were legal immigrants or U.S. citizens who were eligible for that coverage. Another 363,000 people must submit documentation to verify their incomes by Sept. 30 or lose their subsidies. These two numbers combined represent about 10 percent of the people who signed up through the online insurance marketplaces.

17 Sep 2014

Covered California unveils ad campaign, awards $14.6M for outreach

And new enrollment numbers for that state show a growing individual insurance market, officials said. Meanwhile, a Nebraska woman recounts her experience as a navigator, and Oregon officials say a tax credit error will affect fewer people than expected.

17 Sep 2014

Viewpoints: New uninsured numbers are outdated; chiropractors' unusual move into nutrition

The federal government released some very reliable estimates of how many people had health insurance in the first three months of 2014.

16 Sep 2014

Viewpoints: Crediting the health law for modest premium increases; Hollywood misses the mark on sick teens

The rate of growth on premiums for employer-based health coverage in the first five months of this year was one of the lowest in 16 years. Despite longstanding concerns that employer-sponsored coverage might become too costly to sustain, that market seems to have stabilized for now .... Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, federal tax credit subsidies - available for people earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($95,400 for a family of four) - are helping to make these policies affordable and cushioning the impact of premium increases in some cities (9/14).

16 Sep 2014

State Highlights: Calif. prop 45 ad truth check; Medi-Cal autism coverage

Proposition 45 would give California's elected insurance commissioner the authority to reject excessive health insurance rate hikes, a power the commissioner already wields for auto and homeowners insurance rates. The campaign against it -- for which the insurance industry has so far put up $37.3 million -- is now airing a 60-second radio ad narrated by a nurse named Candy Campbell.

16 Sep 2014

Early-stage Hodgkin's disease patients who receive radiation therapy have better survival rate

Patients with stage I and II Hodgkin's Disease who receive radiation therapy (RT) have a higher 10-year survival rate -- 84 percent compared to 76 percent - than those who do not, according to a study presented by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 56th Annual Meeting today.

16 Sep 2014

Study: Subsidy quirk means young people pay more for bronze plans

How the government calculates insurance subsidies makes the cheapest bronze plans more costly for young people relative to those aged 54 to 64, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. Meanwhile, Oregon budgets $2 million for a lawsuit fight with Oracle over its health insurance marketplace.

16 Sep 2014

Health Insurance News and Research

NCQA awards Commendable Accreditation to Centene's Florida subsidiary, Sunshine Health

Viewpoints: Election victory could bring difficult decisions for GOP; Burwell 'presses reset'

State highlights: Report: Hospitals ill-prepared for Sandy; Iowa Supreme Court lets teleabortion go on while it decides

Senate hearing previews upcoming debate about future of CHIP

Parties' disputes on health law fading to 'background noise' in campaign

GAO warns of security risks in HealthCare.gov

Calif. hospitals, insurer join forces to make new health system

Medicaid expansion, uninsured coverage issues continue to simmer in Virginia

High impact health interventions reduce maternal and child mortality in poor countries

State highlights: N.Y. sues drugmaker over Alzheimer's drug switch; Ariz. Republican resigns over Medicaid remarks

Missing paperwork puts coverage at risk for tens of thousands of people

Covered California unveils ad campaign, awards $14.6M for outreach

Viewpoints: New uninsured numbers are outdated; chiropractors' unusual move into nutrition

Viewpoints: Crediting the health law for modest premium increases; Hollywood misses the mark on sick teens

State Highlights: Calif. prop 45 ad truth check; Medi-Cal autism coverage

Early-stage Hodgkin's disease patients who receive radiation therapy have better survival rate

Study: Subsidy quirk means young people pay more for bronze plans

GOP Senate may not be able to repeal health law, but it could cripple key provisions

Obamacare boosts bottom lines of Washington hospitals

Advocates to refine health enrollment message

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Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

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Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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