Content about Health insurance

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT The news that Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia is developing tools to help members throughout the state easily access information on lower-cost emergency room alternatives -- like retail-based health clinics -- is just one more indicator that the physician shortage and soaring healthcare costs are taking a major toll on Americans.

(THE NEWS: Local Blue Cross Blue Shield offers ER alternatives to members. For the full story, click here)

WASHINGTON Of the 82% of consumers surveyed who considered themselves "well" or "adequately" insured, nearly all (96%) were somewhat or very satisfied with their health plans overall, according to a new poll.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT After more than a year that spawned bitter debate, a tea party, a growing divide in Congress and a never-ending clash of ideas, charges, countercharges and soul-searching about the role of government and deficit spending, healthcare reform is law.

WASHINGTON Passage of the mammoth health-reform bill Sunday night by the U.S. House of Representatives is drawing guarded support from several sectors of healthcare industry, including community pharmacy providers, physician groups and the pharmaceutical industry. But the insurance industry is expressing alarm over provisions in the bill aimed at forcing insurers to cover Americans regardless of pre-existing conditions.

NEW YORK To paraphrase a quote often attributed — but probably incorrectly — to 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, if you like either laws or sausages, it’s best not to watch them being made.

That maxim could certainly apply to the seemingly endless bickering over the details of the health-reform debate in Congress. But in an era of constant Internet news feeds, blogging and instantaneous, on-the-spot reporting and analysis, it’s virtually impossible to avoid the spectacle.

NEW YORK After months of hard-edged wrangling in Congress, on the Sunday morning political gab fests, on talk radio, in angry town-hall meetings and in dueling blogs online, the fate of President Obama’s top domestic priority – namely, the overhaul of the nation’s fractured healthcare system and the expansion of health coverage to the uninsured – appeared increasingly threatened. A growing chorus of Beltway insiders and pundits on the left and right were all but declaring health-reform legislation dead in the water for 2009.