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Healthcare Law Is Not One-Size-Fits-All, and Here's Why
One criticism of the Affordable Care Act is that it imposes a costly, one-size-fits-all standard, drastically increasing premiums by requiring everyone to buy health insurance that covers the same mandated benefits. This is not so.
health insurance
One criticism of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it imposes a costly, one-size-fits-all standard, drastically increasing premiums by requiring everyone to buy that covers the same mandated benefits. This is not so.
It’s true that the health reform law imposes some requirements—“essential health benefits”—on what individual market and small business plans offer. But the statute left a lot of discretion to federal regulators, who, in turn, passed much of it on to states, each of which interpreted the requirements differently. And, because most plans already covered these so-called essential health benefits, the additional cost of the regulation is small.
The mistaken notion that the ACA imposes a nationally uniform set of required benefits comes, perhaps, from language in the statute itself.
Read more: http://nyti.ms/1w731OC
Source: The New York Times
Health Care Utilization and Cost of Diagnostic Testing for Respiratory Infections
September 17th 2025Syndromic reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction tests for respiratory infections were associated with lower health care resource utilization and costs, implicating potential for improved value in patient care.
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AI in Health Care: Balancing Governance, Innovation, and Trust
September 2nd 2025In this conversation with Reuben Daniel, associate vice president of artificial intelligence at UPMC Health Plan, we dive into how UPMC Health Plan builds trust with providers and members, discuss challenges of scaling AI effectively, and hear about concrete examples of AI's positive impact.
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Infertility Coverage Boosts ART Use and Pregnancy Success: Richard A. Brook, MS, MBA
August 26th 2025In this episode, Richard A. Brook, MS, MBA, discusses his study showing that infertility treatment coverage increases assisted reproductive technology (ART) use and improves pregnancy outcomes.
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