Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Over 14M People Will Lose Dental Coverage Amid Medicaid Unwinding
NBC News: Millions Expected To Lose Dental Care Coverage After Medicaid Review
More than 14 million adults across the United States who receive Medicaid are at risk of losing dental health coverage now that the Covid public health emergency is over, according to data exclusively obtained by NBC News. The public health emergency ended April 1, allowing states to review Medicaid recipients’ eligibility and disenroll them from the program for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Around 15.7 million people are expected to lose health coverage as a result. The emergency declaration did not allow states to remove enrollees from the program during the pandemic, which caused programs to expand precipitously over the past three years. (McCausland, 4/14)
CNN: Medicaid: Here's What You Can Do If You Lose Coverage
Though millions of Americans are expected to be kicked off of Medicaid in coming months, they don’t all have to be left uninsured. But it could take some work to regain health coverage. “For a lot of people, this can be a very disruptive period of time,” said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “There is a significant time and paperwork burden being placed on families – a lot of them very low income, a lot of them medically vulnerable.” (Luhby, 4/15)
Fierce Healthcare: Medicaid Disenrollment Will Hurt Not-For-Profit Hospitals: Fitch
Not-for-profit hospitals will most likely take a hit to their revenue streams due to the Medicaid redetermination process, according to an analysis from Fitch Ratings. Gary Sokolow, a director in Fitch Ratings’ public finance healthcare group, told Fierce Healthcare that nonprofit hospitals didn’t have to worry for the past three years about taking care of patients showing up in their emergency rooms because many of those patients were either Medicaid beneficiaries or could be automatically enrolled in the program while the eligibility determinations were suspended. (Diamond, 4/14)
Washington Monthly: Expanding Medicaid Coverage To The Incarcerated And Those Recently Released
Last week, a group of House members introduced a bill to provide Medicaid coverage to people in the last 30 days of their sentence in prison or jail. The Medicaid Reentry Act would give states a powerful tool to reduce the drug overdose deaths ravaging the country. (Humphreys, 4/17)
Health News Florida: KidCare Expansion Gets OK By The Florida House In An Unanimous Vote
The Florida House unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would expand eligibility for the KidCare subsidized health insurance program. Kidcare provides health insurance for families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid. Under the program, families who do not qualify can pay $15 or $20 a month in premiums to insure children. Subsidized coverage is available to families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $60,000 for a family of four, according to a House staff analysis. (4/14)
In Medicare news —
NPR: Supreme Court Looks At Whether Medicare And Medicaid Were Overbilled Under Fraud Law
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in a case that could undermine one of the government's most powerful tools for fighting fraud in government contracts and programs. The False Claims Act dates back to the Civil War, when it was enacted to combat rampant fraud by private contractors who were overbilling or simply not delivering goods to the troops. But the law over time was weakened by congressional amendments. Then, in 1986, Congress toughened the law, and then toughened it again. The primary Senate sponsor was — and still is — Iowa Republican Charles Grassley. ... He is alarmed by the case before the Supreme Court this week. At issue is whether hundreds of major retail pharmacies across the country knowingly overcharged Medicaid and Medicare by overstating what their usual and customary prices were. If they did, they would be liable for triple damages. (Totenberg, 4/17)
Mississippi Today: Holly Springs Hospital CEO: We Are Still A Rural ER
After granting the Holly Springs hospital a special designation aimed at helping small, rural hospitals stay afloat, the federal government is now “reviewing” Alliance Healthcare System’s status as such, the hospital CEO says. The hang-up is the hospital’s proximity to Memphis, Tenn., about 50 miles away from Holly Springs. Mississippi Today previously reported that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services rescinded the hospital’s rural emergency hospital designation after State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said at a state board of health meeting that the federal government was “pulling” the designation mere days after awarding it to the hospital. (Bose, 4/14)
