Medicare & Medicaid
News articles in this section include actions by federal regulators like the CMS and HHS, as well as information on Medicare and state Medicaid coverage and benefits.
According to Fidelity Investments, health savings accounts — and the assets within them — are rising quickly, as both employers and employees try to find ways to pay for health care. Still, a number of the features of HSAs are still underutilized.
Lower-income children would have their federal health benefits cut sharply under President Trump’s proposed budget, which analysts say could reverse gains that have pushed uninsured rates for this vulnerable population below 5 percent.
From presidential campaign promises to congressional hearings on the price of EpiPens, 2016 was the year that public anger over the rising cost of prescription drugs boiled into a national outrage.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Thursday testified that the Trump administration does not believe $1.4 trillion worth of cuts it is proposing for Medicaid would affect children, the disabled or the elderly.
On May 4, 2017, with the passage of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act (AHCA) in the US House of Representatives, a sharp tremor was felt by California’s vast health system. The AHCA threatens withdrawal of at least $150 billion from the state’s health system over the next ten years, with the sharpest reductions felt from 2020 thru 2022. However, even if the House bill fails to become law, if history is any guide, California’s notoriously cyclical economy may not ultimately sustain the weight of the state’s expanded Medi-Cal program, posing future economic risks to its care system.
Nevada’s Republican Sen. Dean Heller distanced himself from President Donald Trump’s budget proposal on Wednesday, saying he is working with a bipartisan group to preserve Medicaid spending in states that expanded the program.
The Obamacare replacement bill narrowly passed by House Republicans earlier this month would leave 23 million fewer people insured by 2026, while reducing the deficit by less than previously estimated, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
California will contribute about $1.3 billion to its Medi-Cal expansion this year, a new expenditure that will further strain an already burdened health care budget.
President Donald Trump's budget proposal to be presented Tuesday reflects the same $800 billion cut to Medicaid over a decade that was in the bill which last month passed the House. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that could lead to 10 million people losing healthcare insurance over 10 years.
Senate negotiators, meeting stiff resistance to the House’s plans to sharply reduce the scope and reach of Medicaid, are discussing a compromise that would maintain the program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act but subject that larger version of Medicaid to new spending limits.