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.
A $1.75 trillion social and climate spending framework Democrats unveiled Thursday would reform the health-care market in several ways, expanding access and reducing costs for millions of Americans.
The White House released an updated framework for its trillion-dollar infrastructure package that closes the Medicaid coverage gap and extends enhanced subsidies on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges. But it drops expanding dental and vision benefits after centrists called for paring down the overall cost of the package, which originally was proposed for $3.5 trillion. ...
The federal government’s effort to penalize hospitals for excessive patient readmissions is ending its first decade with Medicare cutting payments to nearly half the nation’s hospitals.
President Joe Biden expressed major doubts that adding new benefits to Medicare will make it in a more than trillion-dollar infrastructure package being negotiated in Congress.
Britta Foster and Minerva Tiznado are in different leagues as far as health care is concerned. Foster, who married into the family that owns the $2.5 billion Foster Farms chicken company, has Blue Shield coverage as well as a high-octane primary care plan that gives her 24/7 digital access to her doctor for a $5,900 annual fee ...
Democrats are haggling over whether to drop two of the most popular elements of their social spending bill as negotiations reach the zero hour, according to a half-dozen sources close to the discussions. While high-level talks on the $1 trillion-plus package are ongoing, lawmakers, staffers, advocates and lobbyists said that a plan to expand Medicare ...
Medicare open enrollment kicked off Friday with more Medicare Advantage plans to choose from but with renewed criticism that insurers are gaming risk adjustment practices to inflate profits. While more and more insurers are expanding their presence in the MA marketplace, private Medicare plans are facing heightened scrutiny over risk adjustment and comprehensive diagnostic coding. ...
Large majorities of American voters across all political stripes favor letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, and most don't buy into the argument that high drug prices are needed for drug companies to invest in new research, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
New data show that 7 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries didn’t compare plans during the 2018 open enrollment period, even though plans can change in their benefits and costs.
Nine out of 10 Medicare Advantage members are enrolled in plans that earned the government's highest quality marks for 2022, according to new federal data.