Michelle Andrews

While studying to become a paralegal and working as a temp, Symphonie Dawson kept feeling sick. She found out it was because she was pregnant.

Living with her mom and two siblings near Dallas, Dawson, then 23, worried about what to expect during pregnancy and what giving birth would be ...

If you're about to tie the knot, do you know how a change in marital status could affect the credit you got toward health insurance when you were single? You could end up having to repay a big chunk of the money. Here's the question and an answer that lays ...

It's been more than 20 years since passage of the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off for medical or family reasons without losing their jobs.

Some workers' advocates and politicians say it's time to plug a big ...

Dr. Robert Wachter has long been an advocate for patient safety and a keen observer of trends in medicine.

Years ago, Wachter coined the term "hospitalist" and predicted the rise of these doctors who specialize in caring for hospitalized patients.

Wachter, associate chairman of University of California, San Francisco's ...

Thousands may face penalties this tax season for not enrolling in health insurance. Many others will owe money or receive refunds. Like all things with taxes, it's complicated.

When the earnings of low-income consumers change over the course of the year, a family can risk losing its health coverage if it shifts between eligibility for Medicaid and eligibility for coverage on the health insurance exchanges that were set up under the Affordable Care Act.

Researchers call this "churning." ...

If you thought more experience with the heath insurance marketplaces would cut down on confusion about them, you'd be wrong. The questions about how they work keep pouring in. Here are answers to some of the latest queries.

I purchased health insurance in Ohio through the marketplace in April. I ...

This tax season, for the first time since the Affordable Care Act passed five years ago, consumers are facing its financial consequences.

Whether they owe a penalty for not having health insurance, or have to figure out whether they need to pay back part of the subsidy they received to ...

More than a dozen insurers offer plans on the New York health insurance marketplace. Depending on where shoppers live, they may have more than a hundred options to choose from.

But despite being spoiled in many ways, there's one popular feature that most New Yorkers can't find in any of ...

Too many consumers have learned the hard way that their credit rating can be tarnished by medical bills they may not owe or when disputes delay insurer payment. That should change under a new policy agreed to this week by the three major credit reporting agencies.

The agencies say ...

Under the health law, large employers that don't offer their full-time workers comprehensive, affordable health insurance face a fine. But some employers are taking it a step further and requiring workers to buy the company insurance, whether they want it or not.

Many workers may have no choice but to ...

Legally married spouses in same-sex couples soon will be able to take unpaid time off to care for a spouse or sick family members even if they live in a state that doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.

The final rule issued by the Department of Labor takes effect March 27. ...

Some people are trying to figure out how to become eligible for coverage on the health insurance marketplaces. Others are wondering how the Affordable Care Act may affect coverage they buy for their children under previously established state programs.

I am covered by my employer's health plan, but I'm not ...

"Is this doctor in my insurance network?" is one of the key questions people ask when considering whether to see a particular doctor. Unfortunately, in some cases the answer may not be a simple yes or no.

That's what Hannah Morgan learned when her husband needed surgery last fall to ...

UnitedHealthcare can't have its cake and eat it, too.

That's the message from California's health insurance marketplace, which turned aside a request from the nation's largest health insurer to sell statewide on the exchange because it opted not to participate when the effort was getting off the ground in 2014.

...

More than 400,000 Medicare beneficiaries who may have been confused or misinformed about the pharmacy details of their 2015 Aetna prescription drug plans have until the end of this month to find participating pharmacies or switch plans, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The kerfuffle highlights the ...

Insurance and the subsidies available to buy it can be confusing. Here are some answers to recent questions from people who are running into difficulties with premiums and tax credits on their marketplace plans.

My 63-year-old husband has Alzheimer's disease. Our annual income is $41,000, from a combination of his ...

When a woman had gallbladder surgery at a Massachusetts hospital in 2013, doctors noticed something suspicious on a CT scan that they thought could be ovarian cancer. But the recommendation that she get a pelvic ultrasound fell through the cracks. Months later, she was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer.

...

In addition to the normal thrills and chills of the income tax filing season, this year people will have the added excitement of figuring out how the health law figures in their 2014 taxes.

The good news is that for most folks the only change to their filing routine will ...

In December, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new obesity drug, Saxenda, the fourth prescription medicine the agency has given the green light to fight obesity since 2012. But even though two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, there's a good chance their insurer won't cover Saxenda or other ...