Parsing Policy: For States, It’s Time To Step Up And Protect The ACA; Don’t Fall For Spurious Claims About Medicare For All

The Hill: Without Federal Leadership, States Must Safeguard ACA Markets
Although the Trump administration and its allies failed to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last year, they took a number of smaller steps that added up to a big problem: The ACA is now weaker. Unfortunately, the administration is still seeking to undermine the health-care law, moving forward with proposals that would expand association health plans (AHPs) and short-term insurance plans, both of which have the potential to limit the ability of state insurance commissioners to regulate health plans and cause premiums to rise. While some claim these proposals would be a boon for small business, small business advocates and health-care experts know we must maintain safeguards that promote affordable health-care coverage and stabilized health insurance markets. (Mike Kreidler and John Arensmeyer, 5/20) 

The Hill: Medicare For All Means Rationing For Everyone
The battle cry of the left today when it comes to healthcare is “Medicare For All." This idea arose with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during his 2016 campaign for president. Sanders knew that the term “nationalized medicine” would be seen as pejorative by a majority of Americans, so he renamed the concept. Nationalized healthcare became “Medicare for All.” ...To assert that Medicare For All — or to use its more honest label, nationalization — would actually produce a better, more effective healthcare system for Americans is a hard sell when one looks at the facts. (Judd Gregg, 5/21)

San Antonio Press-Express: Stripping Funds From Children’s Health Program Bad Budget Move
Congress needs to maintain the commitment it made to children in low-income households earlier this year when it extended the Children’s Health Insurance Program’s funding for 10 years. President Donald Trump is seeking to use a rarely used budgetary maneuver to strip $15 billion of spending that had already been approved for the federal budget. (5/18)

Columbus Dispatch: Silver Tsunami Raises Demand For Home Health Care 
Every day, 10,000 baby boomers nationwide turn 65. At this rate, 1 in every 5 U.S. residents will be retirement age by 2030 (according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 National Population Projections). Baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, now account for 22.9 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau. Ohio is no exception. Between 2010 and 2030, while Ohio’s population is estimated to increase by only 2 percent, the state’s population of people over the age 65 is expected to surge a whopping 66 percent. More senior citizens now see home-care services as a great option to help them maintain their independence and age in place. Multiple nationwide studies show that an increasing number of seniors prefer to remain in their own homes with the addition of in-home support. (Tom DiMarco, 5/21)

San Antonio Press-Express: Address Foster Teen Pregnancy Now, Not Later
Now, a recent report by the Austin based nonprofit Texans Care for Children, reveals that girls in the Texas foster care system are nearly five times as likely to get pregnant than other peers their own age. Yes, foster teens come from the same risk groups that contribute to Texas’ teen birth numbers, but the point is that foster children are essentially responsibilities of the state. (5/19)

Orlando Sentinel: 21 Floridians A Day Die From Drugs While Legislators Cut Treatment
Across Florida, 33 mental health and substance abuse facilities that treat inmates are either closing or will be handling only work-release operations after June 30 because Department of Corrections officials must cut nearly $30 million in substance abuse and mental health programs. ...DOC warned state legislators in February that it would need more money to provide constitutionally required primary health care for 96,000 inmates and to meet orders from three Florida courts to provide another $100 million in services as the result of deliberate and chronic underfunding of prison health care over years. (Lauren Ritchie, 5/18)

Detroit Free Press: Proposed Medicaid Work Requirements Leave Some Disabled Out
Kim Hoxworth is disabled. Thanks to Medicaid, she's getting treatment. But she has yet to obtain the Social Security Administration's declaration that she's officially disabled, entitled to payments from the social safety net she has paid into since she started working at 14. And because it can take up to two years to obtain that status, if a bill proposed by Lansing Republicans and passed last month by the state Senate becomes law, Kim and people like her could be cut off from medical care for years. There is a lot wrong with SB 897, which would require Medicaid recipients to work 30 hours a week to continue receiving health benefits. Because of the way the legislation grants poverty exemptions, it would disproportionately harm impoverished people of color. (Nancy Kaffer, 5/19)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Here's Why Medicaid For All Is The Right Choice For Ohio
In 2013, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a column entitled "I Have Seen the Future, and It Is Medicaid." That's because when he compared the growth in healthcare expenditures among Medicare, private insurance and Medicaid, he found that Medicaid's cost growth was the lowest. He commented, "We have ample evidence that we do know how to control health costs -- and Medicaid does it far better than private insurance, and better than Medicare, too." (John Corlett, 5/20)