When Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently announced his retirement, people began to fret about what a new conservative Supreme would mean for health care, including access to birth control and legal abortions. The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh has particularly alarmed Affordable Care Act (ACA) supporters, reproductive health advocates, and many others because of his...

Final association health plan (AHP) rules spell trouble for consumers. AHPs have been around for a long time, but the new federal rules allow more groups to become AHPs and forego coverage of the essential health benefits while offering premiums varying not based on health, but on factors like geographic location, age, marital status and/or...

The June Kaiser Health Tracking Poll found that 76% of voters, including 58% of Republicans, say coverage for pre-existing conditions is “very important” to them. But last month, the Administration decided not to defend the ACA from a legal challenge with the potential to undo pre-existing condition protections. Senator Maria Cantwell recently called on the...

Immigration remains a hot topic. Congress failed to pass a “compromise” immigration bill a few weeks ago, leaving DACA recipients “in legal limbo.” The Administration is scrambling to reunite children separated from their parents at the border to meet a judge’s order – they have until July 26 and are already behind schedule with the...

Many states have established a system to collect information from insurance companies on health care price and quality. Washington State is one of only six states that currently make this information more accessible to consumers online, with the recent launch of the new HealthCareCompare website. The website aggregates claims data from commercial, Medicaid and Medicare...

The Trump Administration unexpectedly suspended risk adjustment payments to Exchange plans after conflicting court decisions about the payment methodology. Experts say that the Administration doesn’t need to suspend the payments (only re-evaluate the methodology) and is reacting in an unnecessarily slow and disruptive way. Originally one of three risk mitigation strategies set out in the...

A coalition of conservatives, including the Heritage Foundation and former Senator Rick Santorum, released a blueprint “The Health Care Choices Proposal” to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Again. It contains similar provisions to Graham-Cassidy, one of last year’s (many) failed attempts to undermine the ACA. The proposal is very unlikely to pass...

Seattle’s Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal introduced the State-Based Universal Health Care Act of 2018 last week. The new bill would allow states to develop their own plans to provide access to health care for all of their residents. It would provide states with access to federal funding streams and regulatory flexibility to support affordable, universal health...

The news has been filled with images and stories of families being separated at the border. The emotional and health impacts are nothing to sneeze at. Especially for children, whose Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are adding up quickly. But moms are reportedly being pulled away from their breastfeeding babies. There are serious short- and long-term...

The Trump administration released a proposed rule last month that will ban Title X Family Planning Program providers, including Planned Parenthood, from either providing or referring for abortions. It’s bad enough that the rule would “gag” clinic staff, preventing them from directly referring patients for abortion care. But there’s even more to this proposed “gag...