Health Care Reform

Since the first rheumatoid arthritis drug came to market a decade ago, nearly a dozen have been added. If basic economics prevailed, RA treatments and patients would have benefited from competition. But that hasn't been the case.

For the past two years federal regulators have issued subpoenas and scrutinized relationships between drug companies and the charities, which are supposed to operate independently from industry donors.

Brokers, carriers and politicians have written and spoken volumes about the status of health care benefits in 2017.

The federal government lowered a years worth of Medicare payments to 751 hospitals to penalize them for having the highest rates of patient injuries.

According to CDC research, from 2005-2014, cancers associated with being overweight or obese rose 7 percent while those not associated with those conditions experienced a 13 percent drop.

Under the new law, people whose unreimbursed medical expenses exceed 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income can claim a deduction for those expenses in 2017 and 2018.