Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Officials Try To Keep Medicare Part D Premiums Steady As Elections Loom
Stat: Medicare Adds Extra Subsidies To Keep Part D Premiums Stable
Medicare officials are offering private insurers big subsidies to keep premiums for prescription-drug plans stable as the elections approach. (Wilkerson, 8/5)
The Wall Street Journal: The One-Hour Nurse Visits That Let Insurers Collect $15 Billion From Medicare
Millions of times each year, insurers send nurses into the homes of Medicare recipients to look them over, run tests and ask dozens of questions. The nurses aren’t there to treat anyone. They are gathering new diagnoses that entitle private Medicare Advantage insurers to collect extra money from the federal government. A Wall Street Journal investigation of insurer home visits found the companies pushed nurses to run screening tests and add unusual diagnoses, turning the roughly hourlong stops in patients’ homes into an extra $1,818 per visit, on average, from 2019 to 2021. Those payments added up to about $15 billion during that period, according to a Journal analysis of Medicare data. (Mathews, Weaver, McGinty and Maremont, 8/4)
Jacobin: How Kamala Harris Ditched Medicare For All
Kamala Harris once championed Medicare for All, calling the US’s current system “inhumane.” As the 2024 election approaches, questions about Harris’s stance on health care have a new urgency. (Barshad, 8/2)
In Medicaid news —
Axios: Conservatives Put A Target On Medicaid Spending
Conservatives are targeting the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending that's led to the highest insured rate in U.S. history — and no program is more in the crosshairs than Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid for low-income adults helped drive enrollment to nearly 75 million people as of April. But the safety-net health program now costs more than $800 billion annually, with the federal government footing about 70% of the bill. (Goldman, 8/5)
Denver Post: UCHealth Sues Colorado's State Medicaid Agency Over Classification
UCHealth sued the agency overseeing Medicaid in Colorado on Friday, alleging it mislabeled two of the health network’s hospitals, costing it the fair share of a fee to offset uncompensated care. The lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, alleges the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing mislabeled two UCHealth facilities as publicly owned, rather than private nonprofit hospitals. (Wingerter, 8/3)
