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.
The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court not to hear arguments in two cases on its March calendar about the Trump administration’s plan to remake Medicaid by requiring recipients to work. The Biden administration has been moving to roll back those Trump-era plans and cited “greatly changed circumstances” in asking Monday that the cases be dropped ...
A group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to create a single-payer health care system to cover all Californians, immediately defining the biggest health policy debate of the year and putting enormous political pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom.
President Joe Biden’s pick for health secretary, Xavier Becerra, told senators Tuesday that tackling the coronavirus pandemic will be his first priority if confirmed, but he also pledged to work to expand health insurance coverage, curb prescription drug costs and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care.
A federal government watchdog is sounding the alarm that Americans’ growing enthusiasm for telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic has led to a worrying parallel: a “dramatic increase” in telehealth related fraud. The health department’s independent inspector general criticized policymakers for failing to put regulatory safeguards in place when they expanded access to telehealth in ...
While health plans reported sky-high profits in the early parts of 2020 due to care deferred under the pandemic, rising costs related to COVID-19 and more stable care utilization dinged their finances in the fourth quarter. Cigna was the most profitable of the major national insurers in the fourth quarter, bringing in $4.1 billion in ...
Two Democratic senators released their version of a public option health care plan Wednesday, setting the stage for this year’s debate over how best to expand coverage to the millions of people who are uninsured. The proposal from Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.) and Tim Kaine (Va.) would create a government-run health care plan on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...
A House panel has advanced legislation to expand the eligibility for Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange plan subsidies, taking another step toward final passage.
The number of Medicare Advantage plans that offer supplemental benefits continues to grow, according to new data from the Better Medicare Alliance. The analysis, conducted by Milliman, found the number of plans offering such benefits increased across 36 out of 41 categories from 2020 to plan year 2021. That includes increases across 15 of 17 traditional supplemental ...
Approximately 30% of hospitals are not complying with a new rule that requires them to post payer-negotiated rates, with a lack of resources the main reason, a new analysis found. The analysis of more than 1,000 providers across 27 states completed by consulting firm Guidehouse found larger health systems were more likely to comply with the rule ...
COVID-19 caused a massive 51% drop in outpatient Medicare fee-for-service claims last April compared to 2019 as the pandemic reached full swing, according to a new analysis. The analysis, released Tuesday from consulting firm Avalere Health, sought to explore the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilization from March through May. The pandemic caused doctors’ offices to ...