Category:Health Insurance
The Affordable Care Acts Regulatory Drawbacks
The recent government shutdown has brought the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the center of American politics once again. While the law was able to successfully expand coverage to millions of Americans, the law’s continued reliance on subsidies shows its inability to lower premiums due to structural healthcare issues. The temporary subsidy program in particular, which was first expanded during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, was intended as short term relief and has now become essential for keeping premiums affordable for Americans. This overreliance on federal aid exposes a deeper structural weakness with the ACA, which is the law’s inability to sustain affordability without government intervention. As Congress debates whether to renew these subsidies, the question they must ask themselves is whether the ACA’s regulatory framework can ever function as a truly self-sustaining reform without significant subsidies.
Profits Over Patients: The DOJ’s Fraud Investigation into UnitedHealth’s Medicare Practices
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched a civil fraud investigation into UnitedHealth’s Medicare billing practices, scrutinizing allegations that the company improperly inflated patient diagnoses to secure higher federal payments. While the investigation was publicly announced via the Wall Street Journal recently, it has been underway since 2024. This development follows the December 2024 death of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, which sparked renewed public discourse on the ethics of insurance companies. Many individuals came forward with stories of denied coverage for life-saving treatments, raising broader concerns about the practices of private insurers managing Medicare benefits.