Latest Health Reform News from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation

Opposition to the landmark health care overhaul declined over the past month, to 35 percent from 41 percent, according to the latest results of a tracking poll, reported Thursday.

The National Council on Aging has released a poll showing that a majority of senior citizens are uninformed about the impact of the federal health care law on Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

When the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation decided in 1991 to take on Joe Camel, it became the nation’s largest private funding source for fighting smoking.

One of the major myths attached to the new health reform law is that it will lead to fewer emergency room visits.

New census data released Tuesday confirm a huge spread in the rate of uninsured from state to state and the big difference in impact that can be expected as a result of the health-care overhaul recently passed by Congress.

There are more uninsured residents of Texas — 6.1 million and counting — than there are people in 33 states.

As Congress debated the healthcare bill, many critics lamented it would do little to transform a system in which doctors and hospitals bounce patients around in an uncoordinated, costly, sometimes tragic process.

An annual scorecard on benefits shows that public employees continue to have richer benefits than their private-sector counterparts, but squeezed state and local budgets could push governments to start cutting back.

Senate Republicans are seeking a vote on a measure to repeal part of health-care legislation that requires small businesses to report purchases to the Internal Revenue Service.

Unlike many other health policy experts, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, the new chief of Medicare and Medicaid, has extensive real world experience.

A group of lawmakers, many of whom voted against the Democrats’ health care overhaul, are asking the administration to preserve a role in the renovated health system for insurance agents and brokers.

Freshman Rep. Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa.) seemed destined for a tough reelection campaign from the moment she was sworn into office two years ago.

The majority of the nation’s seniors have little understanding of what the Democrats’ newly enacted healthcare law actually does, according to poll results released Monday.

Maryland could save about $829 million on health care costs between fiscal year 2011 and 2020 because of federal health care reform, according to a model the state released Monday.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) this week continued his push to eliminate a controversial tax-reporting provision of the new healthcare reform law, vowing to offer his repeal bill at every turn.

Mark Baumann, a 44-year-old uninsured diabetic, sees in the Obama administration's health-care law a future with stable coverage to pay for his insulin shots and blood tests.

Nonprofit health insurers may be setting aside unnecessarily large surpluses even as some of them continue to raise premiums, according to an analysis by a consumer rights group.

Almost everyone believes there is an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency in health care.

For 10 years, Marcia Snell worked part time for a food-service company and was not offered health benefits.

Some major health insurance companies have stopped issuing certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

The legislative battle over the health care overhaul ended months ago, but it is hard to tell from the intense effort now under way by insurance companies to retool a critical provision.

"I CAN'T PLAY political games on these issues. I've got a government to run," President Obama said in explaining his move to sidestep the Senate and use a recess appointment to install Donald Berwick to run Medicare and Medicaid.

Four months after a Republican filibuster helped to kill off a government-run health plan under the new health-care law, Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott and other U.S. House Democrats are calling anew for a Medicare-like public insurance plan that would compete with private carriers.

Congress has left some of the most difficult decisions about health care reform to state insurance commissioners — handing a group of relatively obscure officials enormous power over the implementation of the law and the success or failure of President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

A group of House Democrats seeks to revive the idea of offering a government insurance plan.

Patients will find it easier to appeal the denials of health insurance claims under rules being issued Thursday by the Obama administration, which is trying to boost political support for the new health-care law by highlighting advantages for consumers.

Technology companies are ramping up their health care businesses ahead of an expected influx of equipment orders from hospitals and doctors who want to start using electronic health records.

Non-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans stockpiled billions of dollars during the past decade, yet continued to hit consumers with double-digit premium increases, Consumers Union found in an analysis of 10 of the plans' finances.

As the United States begins implementing health reform, many aspects of the new law will be experienced differently depending on an individual’s current health insurance status. Joseph Newhouse, an internationally renowned Harvard economist, assessed health reform from the perspective of four different groups.

Massachusetts hospitals say in a new report that they have substantially slowed the rise in their costs in the past 18 months, saving insurers and employers billions of dollars, and showing that they do not deserve all the blame for skyrocketing health insurance premiums.