Americans are among the most generous people in the world. While this nation was founded on the pursuit of a shared dream, the moral pledge of the American people has been to never leave behind our most vulnerable fellow citizens. When we created Medicaid in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on…
DetailsKey House Republicans are warming to a proposal aimed at bringing down ObamaCare premiums, raising the chances of legislative action this year to stabilize the health-care law. House GOP aides and lobbyists say that top House Republicans are interested in funding what is known as reinsurance. The money could be included in a coming bipartisan…
DetailsAmazon announced Tuesday that it will join with J.P. Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to wade into the jungle of U.S. health care, and the news slashed billions in stock-market value from health-care companies in mere hours. American health care could benefit from creative destruction, though this would be Amazon’s toughest fixer upper to date. The announcement offered no…
DetailsA growing number of mostly Republican-led states are rushing to follow Kentucky’s lead in requiring thousands of people on Medicaid to work or lose health coverage. The governors of South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina have said in recent weeks that they plan to pursue work requirements for their Medicaid programs, following the Trump…
DetailsObamacare’s insurance rules represent the beating heart of the law, necessitating a massive system of subsidies and tax increases to make this newly expensive coverage “affordable.” Because Democrats used the “Biden precedent” to impose some of those rules through budget reconciliation, Republicans have every opportunity to repeal these requirements outright through a reconciliation bill. They should…
DetailsOregon voters recently upheld a myriad of new taxes that were passed as part of a major health-care law last summer. The state government is planning to use the estimated $320 million in revenue to cover hundreds of thousands of residents who have enrolled through the Affordable Care Act. The outcome of this vote has serious implications…
DetailsPresident Donald Trump vowed Monday that his new health-care chief Alex Azar — a former top drug-company executive who raised prescription prices — is “going to get those prescription drug prices way down” as Azar was sworn in for his job. “It’s doing to come rocketing down,” Trump said as Azar, 50, stood at his…
DetailsA House committee voted Tuesday to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, something Republicans are seeking as a precondition to expanding the health-care program to more low-income, uninsured Virginians. It was not clear how many of the state’s 1 million Medicaid recipients would be affected if the bill becomes law because the majority are children, the elderly,…
DetailsHHS on Friday released a report touting its 2017 accomplishments, including regulatory rollbacks and cost savings. The 37-page report highlighted some actions that are priorities for the Trump administration, but which have sharply divided the healthcare industry. It said 70 regulatory actions were withdrawn last year and more than $3 billion was recovered through efforts to stop…
DetailsUsing 2017 data: Out of 9,201,805 healthcare.gov enrollees, here’s how many would win and lose if the insurer subsidies were now funded: Winners: 682,712 unsubsidized exchange enrollees enrolled in middle-of the-road “silver” plans Losers: 1,621,325 enrollees who receive premium subsidies and don’t have silver plans Likely losers: 1,706,780 enrollees with silver plans and incomes between 200%-400% of the federal…
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