Health Care Delivery

Having access to a computer and the Internet may seem like a basic commodity for most Americans, but for the economically challenged, this is not always the case.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and other New Hampshire hospitals may see an increase of patients and changes in healthcare approach as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect in the coming months.

If for some reason you're not already drowning in the rough waters of U.S. health policy - what with the Affordable Care Act's health exchanges launching today and Congress and President Obama still duking it out over the four-year-old law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court - well, you're in luck.

Yesterday, the official website enrolling masses of uninsured Americans into health plans logged 1 million visits.

As the nation faced Day 1 of the government shutdown, federal lawmakers made no progress on funding government operations in the new fiscal year, and healthcare leaders pondered the effects of the budget impasse on patients, providers, researchers and public health programs.

Heavy volume contributed to technical problems and delays that plagued the rollout Tuesday of the online insurance markets at the heart of President Obama's health care law, according to state and federal governments, with officials watching closely for clues to how well the system will work and how many people will take advantage of it.

The country is abuzz with news of the state-based exchanges opening today. For the millions of uninsured, it means they can finally obtain affordable coverage. Yet, a lack of outreach and education about what the exchanges entail has created a missing link between consumers and their ability to make effective decisions.

Whatever HHS officials envisioned for the first day of open enrollment on the health insurance exchanges, they surely didn't expect to face it with more than half of the department's employees furloughed.

As online applications, the health insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act will leave something to be desired in at least some states when they start enrolling consumers on Oct. 1.

Tomorrow marks the official start date of open enrollment in the healthcare insurance exchange marketplace. For the first time in history, millions nationwide will have the opportunity to purchase health insurance as a benefit of the Affordable Care Act.

This week the Department of Health and Human Services released a ton of information about how insurance sold in 36 states under the Affordable Care Act will work.

While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has incited critically-needed interest and discussion of a more competitive insurance marketplace in order to control costs, there are still many emerging concerns about both the public and private healthcare exchanges.

House Republicans are poised to open a two-front war on ObamaCare, pushing for a vote this weekend on a bill that would delay the health care law in exchange for raising the debt ceiling -- a week after handing the Senate a separate bill that would defund the law.

The Obama administration on Wednesday released a long-awaited report on premiums in Obamacare's federal insurance exchanges - the first look at the rates that will apply in the vast majority of states.

The sweeping federal health care law making its major public debut next month was meant for people like Juanita Stonebraker, 63, from Oakland, Md., who retired from her job in a hospital billing office a year and a half ago.

Obamacare is going to kill traditional employer-provided insurance. And that's probably a good thing.

A so-called "family glitch" in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.

The highly contentious debate over expanding state Medicaid programs may be given another alternative.

House Republicans pushed through a stopgap spending bill Friday that would strip all funding for President Obama's health care law, setting up another bitter fiscal showdown just 10 days before much of the federal government is set to run out of money.

In an effort to control insurance premium costs, major insurance companies in California are limiting the number of doctors and hospitals that will be available to patients obtaining health plans in the new state health insurance marketplace.

At least one company's doubts about the reform effort have led to their departure from the new navigator program intended to assist the uninsured in obtaining health plans through the federal health exchange.

Republican lawmakers have failed in dozens of attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but a new poll shows just how difficult they have made it for President Obama's signature legislative achievement to succeed.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act saved consumers $1.7 billion on health insurance premiums last year, an HHS report found. Meanwhile, a separate study found that ACA provisions squeezed insurers' profits.

Gov. Corbett is considering an expansion of Medicaid to cover hundreds of thousands of uninsured residents if he can also win significant changes to the existing part of the entitlement program, which otherwise would continue in its current form.

The expansion of Medicaid may drastically change the demographics of beneficiaries.

Even if the employer mandate will not be enforced until 2015, the US Treasury Department is still looking at ways to simplify the healthcare reporting process for employers and insurance companies.

Coping with advanced cancer, Bev Veals was in the hospital for chemo this summer when she got a call that her health plan was shutting down. Then, the substitute insurance she was offered wanted her to pay up to $3,125, on top of premiums.

The health law is expected to change the face of Medicaid literally.

The decision of some states not to expand Medicaid means that the nation's poorest - those the Affordable Care Act would have helped the most - may not receive any help at all.

Officials overseeing Delaware's implementation of the federal health care reform law still don't know what residents will pay for health care coverage under a new state health insurance exchange.