Health Care Reform, Health Insurers | featured news

Health insurance companies are developing services, tools and communication strategies to attract and retain customers The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is changing the way insurers do business. A few years from now, you may see your health plan in a different light.

Insurers and government officials say a new regulation regarding health insurance rebates may be keeping premiums lower for everyone.

Health insurer WellPoint Inc will buy rival Amerigroup Corp for $4.46 billion in a major bet on the expansion of the U.S. government's Medicaid health plans for the poor.

Insurance companies hailed the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, saying it gives them certainty about the rules they'll face as they push to cut administrative costs and reward doctors who contain health care costs by emphasizing preventive care.

Stocks of hospital companies rose sharply and insurance companies fell Thursday after the Supreme Court upheld a requirement that almost all Americans carry health insurance. The stock of Hospital Corp. of America, the largest private hospital chain in the United States, rose a little more than 7 percent. Quest Diagnostics, which runs laboratories, rose almost 3 percent.

Insurer UnitedHealth Group sees some parts of the health care overhaul as sound medicine and plans to keep them regardless of whether the law survives an upcoming Supreme Court ruling.

Progressive activists ratcheted up the pressure for health care reform Tuesday, picketing in front of a hotel where a group of insurance industry leaders were meeting.

President Obama on Monday tore into private health insurers for recent rate hikes, taking a more aggressive rhetorical turn as he pushes for final congressional passage of his top domestic priority.

President Barack Obama urged Congress on Tuesday to strip health insurers of their decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws — hardening his stand against the industry as he tries to revive his stalled health care overhaul.

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.