WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Community health centers that cater to the poor and uninsured saw their patients’ ranks swell by nearly 18 percent from 2008 to 2011 as job loss left more Americans without health insurance, the Obama administration said on Tuesday.

A report released by the White House said 20 million Americans now receive healthcare services through 8,500 community health centers, up from 17 million four years ago.

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – U.S. Republicans on
Thursday issued a politically charged report that quoted
President Barack Obama’s corporate advisers as predicting his
2010 healthcare overhaul would raise – not lower – the cost of
care.

The report, released as the Supreme Court weighs the fate of
Obama’s healthcare law, was compiled by the Republican staff of
the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee with
input from major corporations including General Electric,
Southwest Airlines and American Express.

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – U.S. health insurers will
pay $1.3 billion in rebates to consumers and employers this year
under a provision of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform
law that penalizes plans that devote too little of their premium
revenues to health services, an independent study showed on
Thursday.

The study, published by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family
Foundation, said the data illustrated some of the tangible
benefits that consumers and employers could expect from the
embattled 2010 law if it survives two major legal and political
election-year challenges.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Health insurers will pay $1.3 billion in rebates to consumers and employers this year under a provision of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law that penalizes plans that devote too little of their premium revenues to health services, an independent study showed on Thursday.

The study, published by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said the data illustrated some of the tangible benefits that consumers and employers could expect from the embattled 2010 reform law if it survives two major legal and political election-year challenges.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 70 percent of people who abuse prescription pain relievers obtain the drugs from friends or relatives, usually with permission and for free, according to a government study to be released on Wednesday.

The study, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, underscores the public education challenge that law enforcement officials face in persuading legitimate prescription drug users to dispose of their medications properly before they fall into the wrong hands.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Medicare, the U.S. healthcare program for the elderly, should be able to stave off insolvency for the next 12 years, depending on a number of financial and political assumptions that may prove unrealistic, officials and other experts said on Monday.

The annual report of the Medicare trustees predicted that the program’s key hospital trust fund will become exhausted in 2024, prompting Medicare to begin paying out only 87 percent of scheduled hospital benefits to tens of millions of future retirees and disabled beneficiaries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Medicare, the healthcare program for the elderly, is spending more than $8 billion on a quality-improvement project for private health coverage that mainly rewards plans with mediocre performances, a government watchdog said on Monday.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, recommends canceling the Medicare Advantage quality bonus payment project in preference for quality improvements prescribed by President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) – Medicare, the U.S.
healthcare program for the elderly, is spending more than $8
billion on a quality-improvement project for private health
coverage that mainly rewards plans with mediocre performances, a
U.S. government watchdog said on Monday.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, a
nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, recommends canceling
the Medicare Advantage quality bonus payment project in
preference for quality improvements prescribed by President
Barack Obama’s healthcare law.

WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) – Republicans in Congress are
getting ready to answer an election-year question that has
dogged the party’s campaign for months: How would it replace
President Barack Obama’s healthcare law if the measure is
overturned or repealed?

House Republicans are working to create a legislative
blueprint they can sell to voters after the Supreme Court rules
on Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the
nation’s most sweeping healthcare legislation since Medicare and
Medicaid in the 1960s.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As the U.S. Supreme Court ponders the fate of healthcare reform in the current election year, a study released on Thursday shows that one in four working-age Americans went without insurance at some point in 2011, often as a result of unemployment and other job changes.

The study by the Commonwealth Fund polled 2,100 people aged 19 to 64 and found that 26 percent of non-elderly adults went without insurance — a percentage that researchers said equals about 48 million people when measured against U.S. Census data.