Julie Rovner

Two years ago, a landmark study found that having Medicaid health insurance makes a positive difference in people's lives.

Backers of the program have pointed to that study time and again in their push to encourage states to expand the program as part of the federal health law.

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In an effort to find a compromise for a politically fraught issue, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a proposal to make the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B more available to some younger teens without a prescription and to older women by moving the medication out from behind ...

One of the more popular provisions of the federal health law requires that women be given much freer access to prescription methods of birth control. That includes not only the pill, but implants and IUDs as well.

But what happens if there are not enough doctors to prescribe those ...

This is the sixth week of the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the physician charged with five counts of murder in the deaths of a woman and infants at the Philadelphia abortion clinic he owned and operated.

The case and its grisly details have prompted considerable debate about a ...

OK, the conventional wisdom about the budget President Obama sent to Congress yesterday is that's irrelevant.

It's two months late, after all, and the House and Senate have already approved their own spending blueprints for fiscal 2014.

But here's why it matters when it comes to health.

First ...

The budget President Obama will send to Congress Wednesday is expected to include some $400 billion in reductions to Medicare and other health programs.

And if the word around Washington is correct, it may also include a proposal aimed at winning some bipartisan backing — by changing the ...

A federal judge ordered Friday what women's groups have failed to accomplish politically for a dozen years. He ruled that Plan B, the most commonly used morning-after birth control pill, be sold without a prescription or other restrictions to women of all ages.

Federal District Court Judge Edward Korman ...

The Obama administration is delaying the start of a key piece of the Affordable Care Act. Workers in small businesses will have to wait an additional year to be able to choose from more than one plan in the marketplaces that start next January.

The delay — first proposed in ...

Since the Supreme Court made the Medicaid expansion under the federal health law optional last year, states' decisions have largely split along party lines. States run by Democrats have been opting in; states run by Republicans have mostly been saying no or holding back.

But now Arkansas — ...

The Affordable Care Act turns 3 on Saturday, and it seems just as divisive as the day President Obama signed it.

"This law expands our competitiveness, promotes wellness and prevention, and enhances the economic security of the middle class," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on ...

As the Affordable Care Act nears its third birthday this Saturday, a poll finds the public actually knows less about the law now than when it passed in 2010. Oh, and a lot of what people think they know just isn't so.

Those are the central findings of this ...

Health policy watchers might have been amused reading the latest blueprint for the federal budget, out today.

That's because once again House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan proposes a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans refer to as "Obamacare." But this time, the proposal describes the ...

With President Obama's re-election, states that had postponed creating health insurance exchanges required by the sweeping federal health law will now have to scramble to set them up....

It's not so much what Mitt Romney said about whether the government should guarantee people health care in his interview Sunday that has health care policy types buzzing. It's how tha...

The farm bill is likely to be left on the table when Congress leaves for recess, but don't panic. The nutrition and commodity programs will likely be extended after Election Day at cu...

Under orders from Congress, the administration detailed exactly how it would administer painful cuts to both defense and domestic programs that were ordered under last year's budget d...

Adding Rep. Paul Ryan to the Republican presidential ticket will likely elevate issues like Medicare and Medicaid to the top of the election agenda. Ryan's presence will present the p...