Michelle Andrews

As the 2015 tax filing season gets underway, tax preparers said a delay in health law tax forms is tripping up some consumers, while others want details about exemptions from increasingly stiff penalties for not having insurance.

Under the law, most people must have health insurance or pay a ...

There's never a shortage of questions about the twists and turns of health coverage. Here are answers to recent questions from readers about premium tax credit repayments for marketplace plans, out-of-network emergency care and nursing home bills.

While doing my taxes I discovered that I made more money in 2015 ...

In January, more than 350,000 New Yorkers began paying $20 a month or less for comprehensive health insurance with no deductibles and low copayments, for a type of coverage made possible by the federal health law. Minnesota has similar coverage in place through the same option, with more than ...

Last fall, Shalonda Brown decided she'd had it with paying nearly $1,000 a month for family health, dental and vision plans through her job at an independent lab in Dallas.

Casting about for an alternative, she checked out individual family plans on HealthCare.gov. No dice. The family's income was too ...

As the third open enrollment period winds down on the health insurance marketplaces, one thing hasn't changed much since the online exchanges opened: It's still often hard to find out whether a plan covers abortion services.

The health law requires insurers to say one way or the other, and they ...

For people whose income changes shift them above or below the Medicaid threshold during the year, navigating their health insurance coverage can be confusing. Ditto for lower income people who live in states that may expand Medicaid this year.

Under the health law, states can expand Medicaid coverage to adults ...

Promising workers lower health insurance premiums for losing weight did nothing to help them take off the pounds, a recent study found. At the end of a year, obese workers had lost less than 1.5 pounds on average, statistically no different than the minute average gain of a ...

More men are getting colonoscopies to screen for cancer since the Affordable Care Act reduced how much Medicare beneficiaries pay out of pocket for the preventive tests, a recent study found. The change, however, didn't affect women's rates.

A study, published in the December issue of Health Affairs, ...

Insurance policies that pay a lump sum if workers get cancer or another serious illness are being offered in growing numbers by employers. Companies say they want to help protect their workers against the financial pain of increasingly high deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. But it's important to understand the ...

Two professional organizations representing emergency doctors warn that a federal rule released in November could lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers when they need emergency care outside their health plan's network of providers.

But consumer advocates and health policy analysts say the groups' proposed solution doesn't adequately protect ...

Mental health courts have been embraced in many communities, and it's easy to understand why.

Rather than sending someone who's mentally ill to an overcrowded jail that is poorly equipped to manage his condition, mental health courts offer treatment and help with housing and other social services.

The community saves ...

When do people have to repay premium tax credits for health insurance purchased on the marketplaces? And does Medicare ever cover dental services? Read on to find the answers.

My 60-year-old sister lost her $45,000 a year job in 2014, and she and her husband bought a marketplace plan this ...

More people who are overweight or obese may get screened for diabetes under guidelines released Tuesday by a panel of prevention experts. As a result, insured people whose blood sugar is higher than normal now can be referred to nutrition and exercise counseling without paying anything out of pocket for ...

Many primary care practitioners will be a little poorer next year because of the expiration of a health law program that has been paying them a 10 percent bonus for caring for Medicare patients. Some say the loss may trickle down to the patients, who could have a harder time ...

Talk about targeted. Consumers scrolling through the health plan options on the insurance marketplaces in a few states this fall may come upon plans whose name — Leap Diabetes Plans — leaves no doubt about who should apply.

Offered by Aetna in four regions, the gold-level plans are tailored for ...

In addition to treating what ails you, a number of health care systems aim to sell you health insurance to pay for it.

Some of the most competitively priced policies on health insurance marketplaces are offered by the providers of health care, but it remains to be seen how many ...

The open enrollment window for health insurance is open. As of Sunday, people could start shopping for coverage through the state and federal marketplaces. Naturally, when the options are on the table (or screen), questions pop up about how the buying process works and how to choose the best plan. ...

When the health insurance marketplaces open Sunday, consumers shopping for 2016 coverage may find steeper premium increases than last year and more plans that offer no out-of-network coverage.

According to an analysis released Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services, the cost of the second-lowest silver plan ...

When Mildred Fine received the annual notice informing her about changes to her Medicare prescription drug plan for 2016, she was shocked. If she stayed with the same plan, her monthly premium would more than triple, from $33.90 to $121.10, and her annual deductible would rise from $320 to $360.

President Obama signed legislation last Wednesday that makes a significant change in the health law's small business rules, following a rare bipartisan effort to amend the Affordable Care Act.

The revision updates the definition of what constitutes a small employer so that companies with 51 to 100 workers won't ...