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.
Preserving the employer tax exclusion topped the list of the National Association of Health Underwriters’ legislative priorities as its members visit Congress during today’s NAHU Capital Conference.
With prospects dim for the U.S. to adopt a single-payer “Medicare for All” program, health care reform advocates turned instead to an insurance plan designed by the government that could compete with private insurance plans sold on the health care exchanges. The idea behind this “public option” is that it could ultimately expand health care ...
Medi-Cal, the state’s safety net health program, isn’t free for everyone. More than half a million of California’s lowest-income children, pregnant individuals and working disabled adults are required to pay health insurance premiums, ranging from $13 a month to as much as $350. That may change this year under two proposals being floated in Sacramento. ...
The number of kids covered by Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program has soared to a record 40 million during the pandemic, aided by a congressional provision that bars states from disenrolling them during the public health emergency. However, at least 6.7 million children are at risk of losing that coverage and going uninsured for a period ...
Several major payer groups and Medicaid advocates are pressing Congress for a 120-day heads up when the COVID-19 public health emergency ends, arguing they need as much time as possible to make Medicaid enrollees aware they could lose coverage. A collection of payer and Medicaid state advocacy groups wrote to congressional leadership on Thursday asking ...
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is delaying the release of the hospital star ratings from April until June due to an error in one of the measures. CMS is updating the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings on the Care Compare website from April until July so it can correct a calculation error in ...
The Biden administration is debating whether to overhaul a major Trump-era program tied to Medicare as soon as this week in the face of rising pressure from prominent progressive Democrats, more than a half-dozen people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. The Trump program — known as a direct contracting model — allows private companies ...
The Biden administration and state officials are bracing for a great unwinding: millions of people losing their Medicaid benefits when the pandemic health emergency ends. Some might sign up for different insurance. Many others are bound to get lost in the transition. State Medicaid agencies for months have been preparing for the end of a ...
House Republicans are demanding the Biden administration starts winding down the COVID-19 public health emergency, while hospital lobbying groups are pressing it to do the opposite.
A month into its debut, California’s new Medicaid prescription drug program is riddled with problems, leaving thousands of patients without medications — often after languishing on hold for up to eight hours on call center phone lines. On Jan. 1, the state handed control of its Medicaid drug program, known as Medi-Cal Rx, to Magellan Health, ...