Sarah Varney

Health Law Adds New Expense For Farmers, Contractors

Contractors, who provide farmers with field workers, say they’re already preparing for rise in cost & liability under the Affordable Care Act.

Sarah Varney
By Sarah Varney
Insurance brokers and health providers estimate that meeting the Affordable Care Act’s minimum health plan will cost about $1 per hour per employee in the field (AP Photo/David Goldman)

HURON, Calif. — Farm labor contractors across California -- the nation's biggest agricultural engine -- are anxiously studying a provision of the Affordable Care Act, which will require hundreds of thousands of field workers to be covered by health insurance. And while the requirement to cover workers was recently delayed until 2015, the

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Critical Decisions Await Patient, Family Members When Medicare Deadline Looms

This story was produced in collaboration with NPR. Bruce Osterweil is a lucky man to live just a short walk from where San Francisco’s Golden Gate meets the cold, rough waters of the Pacific Ocean. He is also a lucky man to have married his wife, Patricia Furlong, who has long provided the family’s health insurance […]

Sarah Varney
By Sarah Varney
In this photo taken Monday, May 14, 2012, Kathy Watson, a cancer patient who also runs a medical transport company, sits in a coffee shop while waiting for calls to pick up patients, in Lake City, Fla. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

This story was produced in collaboration with NPR. Bruce Osterweil is a lucky man to live just a short walk from where San Francisco’s Golden Gate meets the cold, rough waters of the Pacific Ocean. He is also a lucky man to have married his wife, Patricia Furlong, who has long provided the family’s health insurance through her job at a small

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Medicare Fraud Squads Wield New Weapons

Fighting health care fraud in the U.S. can seem like an endless game of whack-a-mole. When government fraud squads crack down on one scheme, another pops up close by. But the fraud squads who look for scams in the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs have some new weapons: tools and funding provided by the health […]

Sarah Varney
By Sarah Varney
Sign at Occupy St Pete: "Hands Off Social Security, Medicaid Medicare" "www.SayNoCuts.org" (Photo by Robert Neff)

Fighting health care fraud in the U.S. can seem like an endless game of whack-a-mole. When government fraud squads crack down on one scheme, another pops up close by. But the fraud squads who look for scams in the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs have some new weapons: tools and funding provided by the health law. Medicare and Medicaid pay

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