Nov 18 2013
The Wall Street Journal reports on developments related to insurance coverage and high-risk patients, as well as emerging concerns about how insurance costs could impact consumer spending.
The Wall Street Journal: High-Risk Patients Fuel More Health-Law Worry
So-called high-risk pools for people rejected by commercial health-insurance companies were supposed to be largely phased out when President Barack Obama's health law kicked in. Instead, they are gaining a brief second life in some states due to the problems with the federal health-insurance exchange created by the law (Radnofsky, 11/17).
The Wall Street Journal: Wal-Mart Says Insurance Costs May Hurt Customer Spending
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has a long list of reasons why its customers aren't spending as much as hoped: the expiration of the payroll tax cut in January, the November rollback of food-stamp benefits and continued uncertainty in Washington. Now, the world's largest retailer is hinting at a new one: the looming individual mandate to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (Banjo, 11/17).
|
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
|