Health Insurance, Health Care Reform | featured news

As Democratic congressional leaders and White House officials work to shape health care bills that will go to the House and Senate floors, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and now wins clear majority support from the public.

Measures pending in Congress push insurers to keep down costs and cover all regardless of health. Despite growing frustration with the way health insurers deny medical treatments, major healthcare bills pending in Congress would give patients little new power to challenge those sometimes life-and-death decisions.

U.S. President Barack Obama hit back at the health insurance industry on Thursday, accusing it of trying to deceive Americans about healthcare reform and vowing to overhaul the industry in Congress.

What was a tenuous truce between White House and industry turns quickly into an all-out battle, with both sides ratcheting up hostilities, rhetoric.

After drawing national attention for denying coverage to a healthy but heavy 4-month-old boy, a Colorado insurer has changed its policy on hefty infants.

The White House on Monday blasted a report from the health insurance industry that said Senate healthcare legislation would lead to increases in annual insurance premiums of as much as $4,000 by 2019.

Industry strikes back against reform effort with a report warning the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.

The health insurance industry doesn't want Congress to let you off easy if you decide to ignore a proposed requirement that all Americans must have coverage.

Two members of the Senate Finance Committee plan to put their Democratic colleagues on the spot on Tuesday by offering amendments on whether to give uninsured Americans the opportunity to join a government insurance program.

Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.

"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."