A daunting project to verify whether 1.2 million Medicaid enrollees qualify for the program entered its second phase this month, as tens of thousands of people with disabilities received letters telling them they need to reapply for benefits.
MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, needs to reach a diverse group whose limitations can be physical or mental and who will have to fill out lengthy forms to maintain their health coverage.
The Associated Press has reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office has issued subpoenas to the Massachusetts Health Connector (the state’s insurance exchange). The subpoenas cover the period during which the website experienced major technical problems and mismanagement as the state transferred to an Obamacare (ACA) exchange under former Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA).
Three Republican senators have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concern for the “lack of oversight for more than $1 billion in federal grants” given to state-based marketplaces.
In the letter to CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, the senators — Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and John Barrasso of Wyoming — note a handful of state-based exchanges have switched to the federal marketplace, run by CMS, and inquire if the agency will seek reimbursement for funds the states received from CMS to set up a state-based marketplace.
Bleeding cash, the Louisiana Department of Insurance (LDI) announced Friday that Louisiana’s Obamacare health insurance co-op will be closing its doors by the end of 2015.
It will be the second collapse of an Obamacare health care co-op this year and the third since the Obama administration rolled them out in 2012 as a competitor to commercial health insurance companies.
The number of Minnesotans struggling to pay their medical bills is rising sharply, despite an increase in the number of residents who have health insurance.
In the past year, Minnesota’s main hospital and clinic groups filed nearly 9,000 lawsuits against people with large or long-standing medical debts — a sharp increase since 2005, according to a Star Tribune analysis of court records.
State-run health insurance markets that offer coverage under President Barack Obama’s health law are struggling with high costs and disappointing enrollment. These challenges could lead more of them to turn over operations to the federal government or join forces with other states.
The settlement announced this week between the state and Noridian Healthcare Services over Maryland’s bungled online health exchange is not quite a done deal.
The $45 million deal must still be approved by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. attorney’s office for Maryland and the North Dakota insurance regulators, who oversee Noridian Healthcare’s parent company.
Last week, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced that he will bypass the legislative process and implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion by executive fiat.
Walker’s announcement should be no surprise to Obamacare proponents – after all, President Obama has maltreated his executive authority dozens of times to amend his signature law. But expansion may come as a shock to Alaska’s legislative leadership, who last month brokered an informal arrangement with the governor to put Medicaid expansion on hold until 2016.
California lawmakers and activists are spearheading a first-in-the-nation plan to let undocumented immigrants buy Obamacare health insurance.
Supporters say the California proposal, which would need federal approval and couldn’t start until 2017, is the next logical step in expanding health insurance to a population that was intentionally excluded from the president’s health-care law. But uniting the two highly combustible issues of Obamacare and immigration could reignite a fierce health-care reform controversy.
After failing to persuade his Legislature to expand Medicaid, Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska said Thursday that he planned to unilaterally accept the federal funds available to cover more low-income residents under the program.