Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
82% Of Floridians Kicked Off Medicaid Were Bumped Due To Red Tape
WMFE: About 250,000 Floridians Were Kicked Off Medicaid. Experts Say Most Were Still Eligible
There are about 250,000 people who have lost Medicaid coverage since Florida began its redetermination process this month, however, many of those people could still be eligible. State data show that 10% of those who lost coverage were terminated because they were ineligible or hadn’t used Medicaid over the past 12 months. However, 82% of people lost coverage for procedural reasons. (Pedersen, 5/23)
NPR: Medicaid Enrollees Are Losing Coverage In States Like Florida
States have begun to remove people from Medicaid, something they could not do for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic. State Medicaid programs are reviewing the eligibility of roughly 90 million beneficiaries in the U.S., now that a rule suspending that process has expired. Those who remain eligible should be able to keep their coverage, and those who don't will lose it. (Simmons-Duffin, 5/24)
Axios: Medicaid Unwinding Will Catch Many Off Guard, Survey Shows
About 1 in 4 Medicaid enrollees don't know where to look for other coverage if they drop off the safety net program's rolls, and 15% say they'll be uninsured, according to a new KFF survey. (Dreher, 5/25)
In other Medicaid news —
Stat: Biden Wants To Tackle High Drug Prices In Medicaid
The Biden administration wants to help states control Medicaid prescription drug costs by making prices more transparent and curbing the practice of so-called spread pricing. The goal is to give states more leverage in price negotiations by forcing drugmakers to share and publish details about their pricing data. The government would collect specific drug pricing information from makers of up to 10 particularly high-cost drugs. (Wilkerson, 5/24)
Cincinnati Enquirer: Mercy Health Threatens Anthem Medicaid Contract Termination
Bon Secours Mercy Health plans to terminate a Medicaid insurance contract with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield that covers 10,000 Ohioans unless the parties renegotiate a new contract by June 30.The two companies currently have a contract that runs through 2024 to provide Medicaid insurance to patients at Mercy's 21 hospitals in Ohio. (Sutherland, 5/23)
VTDigger: Vermont Medicaid Expected To Start Paying Dentists More
Medicaid has not significantly raised its payments to dental providers for more than a decade. Over that same period, more and more practitioners stopped accepting new patients with the insurance. (Fountain, 5/23)
KFF Health News: California Hospitals Seek A Broad Bailout, But They Don’t All Need It
One of the country’s richest hospitals, which caters to Hollywood elites, accepted nearly $28 million last year from an unusual source: a charity that siphons money from other California hospitals, many of which serve the state’s poorest residents. Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles secured the grant under California’s recession-era financing scheme that allows wealthy hospitals to take valuable health care tax money from poorer ones. Hospitals across the state agreed in 2009 to the arrangement in order to tap billions more per year in taxpayer dollars to support the state’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal. (Young and Hart, 5/25)
