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Bloomberg
President Donald Trump's choice to be the next head of the Department of Health and Human Services will go before the Senate Finance Committee Jan. 9, a major step toward his confirmation. The agency has been without a permanent leader at its helm since former secretary Tom Price resigned in late September. Alex Azar, former president of Eli Lilly & Co. and former deputy secretary at the HHS, is likely to face the same questions about his ties to the pharmaceutical industry and his ideas for tackling high drug prices he faced the last time he went before a congressional committee. In November, Senate Democrats questioned whether Azar could take on an industry he was a part of for several years.
Medicaid Health Plans of America, which backs Azar's nomination, told Bloomberg Law in a separate statement that, on the contrary, the nominee's drug industry experience "gives him the expertise about drug pricing needed to set a direction for increased value at lower cost." Additionally, Azar has shown a "commitment to work with the private sector to address drug prices," Jeff M. Myers, president and CEO of Medicaid Health Plans of America, said in the statement.
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FierceHealthcare
In another sign that it's embracing nonlegislative means of altering healthcare policy, the Trump administration is poised to issue new guidelines that pave the way for states to enact Medicaid work requirements. The guidelines would set the conditions for allowing states to require able-bodied Medicaid beneficiaries to work. States would still have to apply for and be granted waivers in order to do so.
But not everyone agrees that Medicaid work requirements are a wise idea. Such a policy could lead to worse outcomes and higher costs if individuals cycle in and out of employment — and thus Medicaid eligibility, Medicaid Health Plans of America CEO Jeff Myers told FierceHealthcare previously. "That will obviously interrupt care management that the plans have built for chronic conditions that actually cost the state a lot of money," he said.
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ABC News
Democrats are shifting to offense on healthcare, emboldened by successes in defending the Affordable Care Act. They say their ultimate goal is a government guarantee of affordable coverage for all. With Republicans unable to agree on their vision, Democrats are debating ideas that range from single-payer, government-run care for all, to new insurance options anchored in popular programs like Medicare or Medicaid. There's also widespread support for authorizing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, an idea once advocated by candidate Donald Trump, which has languished since he was elected president.
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The Hill
The Congressional Budget Office drastically lowered its estimate of the cost to renew a health insurance program for low-income children, likely making it easier for lawmakers to agree on a plan for extending the program. In a letter sent Friday to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the CBO said that financing the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would cost $800 million over the next 10 years — far lower than analysts' original estimate of $8.2 billion.
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Kaiser Health News
Some states are facing a mid-January loss of funding for their Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) despite spending approved by Congress in late December that was expected to keep the program running for three months, federal health officials said Friday. The $2.85 billion was supposed to fund states' CHIP programs through March 31. But some states will start running out of money after Jan. 19, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS did not say which states are likely to be affected first.
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
Virginia now has enough money to extend health insurance benefits through the end of February for more than 68,000 children and 1,100 pregnant women, but they ultimately would lose coverage unless Congress reauthorizes the program when the federal budget extension expires at the end of next week. Virginia Medicaid Director Cindi B. Jones told legislators on Monday that the state had received additional federal money to allow the program to continue through Feb. 28 rather than end on Jan. 31, as it had warned affected families last month.
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Star-Telegram
Texas now has enough federal money to keep alive its health insurance program for more than 450,000 uninsured kids and pregnant women through the end of March, a state official said on Friday. That's true even though the Children's Health Insurance Program technically expired on Sept. 30 after Congress failed to renew funding. Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the state Health and Human Services Commission, said Texas can keep the program afloat thanks to $248 million in funding allocated through a short-term spending bill passed by Congress last month.
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Kaiser Health News
At least 70,000 low-income Maine residents should gain Medicaid health insurance because of the ballot measure that passed last fall. Advocates collected signatures to put the question to voters, and, in November, Maine became the first state to get approval at the ballot box to expand Medicaid, passing with 59 percent approval. But even though voters here in Maine decided to expand Medicaid, the law's fate is unclear. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has said that opening up the program to more poor adults threatens the state's financial stability and that lawmakers shouldn't raise taxes to pay for it.
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Bangor Daily News
Much has been written and said about last year's referendum to expand Maine's Medicaid program under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and the funding battle that's brewing this year in the legislature. But according to Assistant House Majority Leader Jared Golden, D-Lewiston, there will be no battle. Golden says Democrats don't intend to engage in a funding debate this year because the Legislature's fiscal office has already determined there is enough funding in the Medicaid program to last through May of 2019.
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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Thanks to efforts to reduce Arkansas' Medicaid spending and enrollment, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said, his request for federal and state funding for the program during the fiscal year that starts July 1 will be about $478 million lower than what he had first planned. The reduction would bring the budget for the state Medicaid program in fiscal 2019 to about $7.5 billion — about $55 million less than the state budgeted this fiscal year.
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A KLAS Leader in the delivery of actionable population health, i2i Population Health’s integrated Population Health Management and Analytics solutions have proudly served healthcare organizations for over 17 years. The company offers a depth of experience gained from over 2,500 healthcare delivery sites across 34 states, supporting 20+ million lives.
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The Associated Press via San Francisco Chronicle
Arkansas' governor on Thursday touted an 11 percent drop in the state's Medicaid rolls over the past year as he prepared for another potential fight in the legislature to keep the state's hybrid Medicaid expansion alive. Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Department of Human Services officials said that enrollment in the state's Medicaid program dropped by more than 117,000 people from 2017 to 2018. Nearly 59,000 of that came from the state's hybrid expansion, which uses Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for low-income residents.
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