Affordable Care Act Archives - Northwest Public Broadcasting

President Biden Is Reopening ACA Enrollment. See If You’re Eligible To Sign Up Or Switch Plans

By NPR News February 15, 2021

In January, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to open up the federal health insurance marketplace for three months starting Monday so uninsured people can buy a plan and those who want to change their marketplace coverage can do so.Read More

The New Year Brings More Transparency In Hospital Prices With New Federal Health Care Rule

By NPR News January 3, 2021

The Trump administration's rule, which goes into effect this month, was made possible in part through the efforts of Cynthia Fisher, the founder and chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org. Patients from across the United States have told "stories of being blindsided by outrageous medical bills," Fisher told NPR's Weekend Edition. "This is the win to put affordable into the Read More

Think Your Health Care Costs Are Covered? Beware The ‘Junk’ Insurance Plan

By NPR News December 4, 2020

Whether you're looking for coverage online or through a broker, be sure to note the difference between a comprehensive health plan and a "junk" plan with limited benefits and coverage restrictions.Read More

Affordable Care Act Again Goes Before Supreme Court, Now With Amy Coney Barrett On Bench

By NPR News November 10, 2020

The Justice Department sent a letter in support of repealing the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. Here, a sign in support of the ACA in April 2017 in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is back before the Supreme Court, with opponents challenging it for a third time. The first attempts to derail the law failed in the high court by votes of 5-to-4 and 6-to-3. But the makeup of the court is very different now, with three justices appointed by President Trump – among them new Justice Amy Coney Barrett.Read More

Medicaid’s Future Hinges On Who Wins The White House

By NPR News November 2, 2020

Health care activists rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol on March 22, 2017, to protest Republican efforts that would have dismantled the Affordable Care Act and capped federal payments for Medicaid patients. The Republican congressional bills, part of the party's "repeal and replace" push in 2017, were eventually defeated. CREDIT: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Trump administration has given states ways to restrict spending on the government insurance program for low-income Americans. A Biden administration would expand Medicaid coverage.Read More

Supreme Court Restricts Access To Birth Control Under Affordable Care Act

By NPR News July 8, 2020

U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. CREDIT: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The opinion upheld a Trump administration rule that significantly cut back on the Affordable Care Act requirement that insurers provide free birth control coverage under almost all health care plans.Read More

Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare Must ‘Fall,’ Trump Administration Tells Supreme Court

By NPR News June 26, 2020

Later this year, the high court will hear a case that seeks to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act. In a court filing Thursday, the Trump administration fully supported the move.Read More

Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration

By NPR News June 12, 2020

Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, has long argued that "sex discrimination" protections in the Affordable Care Act aren't meant to encompass protections for transgender people. CREDIT: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Trump has reversed Obama-era protections that prohibit discrimination in health care based on gender identity. Critics warn the rule could harm a vulnerable group — LGBTQ people — during a pandemic.Read More

Trump’s Taxes, Birth Control, ‘Faithless Electors’ Headline Supreme Court’s Historic Phone Arguments

By PBS Newshour May 5, 2020

The building of the U.S. Supreme Court is pictured in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 19, 2020.

During historic telephonic arguments this week and next, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up major challenges involving access to President Donald Trump’s financial records, birth control health insurance, “faithless electors” in presidential elections and the constitutionality of the federal ban on robocalls, among others.Read More

How Tea Party Budget Battles Left The National Emergency Medical Stockpile Unprepared

By NWPB News April 5, 2020

File photo. Don Wood, an official with the Strategic National Stockpile, awaits another truck load of medications in Salt Lake City, Utah during a swine flu outbreak from the H1N1 virus in 2009. The pandemic that year prompted the largest use to date of the stockpile, which was created in 1999. It has never confronted anything on the scale of the current COVID-19 pandemic. CREDIT: Francisco Kjolseth/AP

Dire shortages of vital medical equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile that are now hampering the coronavirus response trace back to the budget wars of the Obama years, when congressional Republicans elected on the Tea Party wave forced the White House to accept sweeping cuts to federal spending.Read More

U.S. Supreme Court To Decide Fate Of Affordable Care Act — Again

By NWPB News March 2, 2020

A view of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide a lawsuit that threatens the Obama-era health care law, but the decision is not likely until after the 2020 election. The court said it would hear an appeal by 20 mainly Democratic states of a lower-court ruling that declared part of the statute unconstitutional and cast a cloud over the rest.Read More

Insured Adults Are Seeking Less Primary Care As Out-Of-Pocket Health Costs Rise

By NPR News February 4, 2020

Sure, you can shoot your doctor an email, or hit the urgent care clinic when you have a sore throat. But those convenient alternatives may be less likely than regular visits to a primary provider to catch symptoms that ebb and flow, yet might signal a larger health problem. CREDIT: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Using data from an insurer that provides health coverage to about 20 million people per year across the United States, researchers found that visits to primary care providers made by adults under the age of 65 had dropped by nearly 25% from 2008 to 2016.Read More

Several ‘Best’ U.S. Hospitals Penalized Over Too-High Rates Of Infection, Injury

By NPR News January 31, 2020

$Under the law, Medicare is mandated each year to punish the 25% of general care hospitals that have the highest rates of patient safety issues. The assessment is based on rates of infections, blood clots, sepsis cases, bedsores, hip fractures and other complications that occur in hospitals and might have been prevented. Morsa Images/Getty Images$

Medicare is cutting payments to 786 hospitals with the highest infection and complication rates. The list includes a third of the hospitals proclaimed as the nation's "best" in one prominent ranking.Read More

Supreme Court Takes Up Birth-Control Conscience Case

By NPR News January 17, 2020

The high court will consider a case involving a challenge to a Trump administration rule that allows employers to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage for religious or moral reasons.Read More

Patty Murray Joins GOP Senate Colleague In Targeting High Health Care Bills, Drug Costs

By NPR News May 23, 2019

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member, and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate health committee, introduced legislation to address health care issues such as surprise medical bills and high drug costs. CREDIT: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In a year already marked by a wide variety of congressional health care legislation, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., on Thursday released the details of a plan they hope will help bring down health costs and eliminate surprise medical bills for patients.Read More

With Reversal, Trump Administration Now Says Entire Affordable Care Act Should Be Repealed

By NPR News March 26, 2019

A letter from the Department of Justice announced the shift, in support of a district court judge's ruling that the law is unconstitutional. The case will likely end up in the Supreme Court.Read More

Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

By NPR News February 27, 2019

Carol Marley, a hospital nurse with private insurance, says coping with the financial fallout of her pancreatic cancer has been exhausting. CREDIT: Anna Gorman/KHN

Coping with the financial fallout of cancer is exhausting — and nerve-wracking. But the worst part, one patient says, is that it's unexpected. Cancer patients are 2.65 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than those without cancer, and bankruptcy puts them at a higher risk for early death, according to research.Read More

Federal Judge Strikes Down Affordable Care Act As Unconstitutional

By NPR News December 14, 2018

President Trump praised the ruling by a court in Texas as supporters of the ACA said they will appeal.Read More

Idaho’s Proposition 2 Puts Medicaid Expansion To Voters After State Lawmakers Refused

By NWPB News November 3, 2018

Amy Pratt personally collected more than 1,000 signatures to help get Proposition 2 on the ballot. It's the first time she's been politically active and she has no plans of stopping. CREDIT: JAMES DAWSON / BSPR

After years of inaction by the Idaho legislature on the state's healthcare gap, Proposition 2 on the state ballot gives Idahoans the chance to say whether they want Medicaid expansion -- a proposal endorsed by outgoing Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.Read More