Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump's Tax Law Will Leave 10 Million Uninsured, New CBO Report Forecasts
AP: Budget Office Says Trump’s Tax Law Will Add $3.4 Trillion To Deficits, Leave 10 Million Uninsured
President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law will add $3.4 trillion to federal deficits through 2034, the Congressional Budget Office reported Monday, a slight increase in the projection that takes into account the final tweaks that Republicans made before getting the legislation over the finish line. More than 10 million people will be uninsured under the law in 2034 because of the law, CBO found, an improvement from an earlier projection that found 11.8 million people losing coverage over the decade. (Freking, 7/21)
Politico: Republicans Are Ready To Revive Stalled Health Care Legislation. Dems Want The GOP To Pay A Price
Republicans are eyeing an opportunity to enact a bipartisan health package by the end of the year, but Democrats aren’t exactly in a deal-making mood. With the dust barely settled after enacting their party-line domestic policy megabill, GOP lawmakers on the Senate Finance, House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce committees are hoping they’ll have another shot this year at making policy changes to drug pricing long sought by both parties. (Guggenheim, 7/21)
Regarding Medicaid cuts —
AP: Judge Blocks Medicaid Cuts To Some Planned Parenthood Clinics
Planned Parenthood won a partial victory Monday in a legal fight with President Donald Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation. A provision in that bill ends Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, even to those like Planned Parenthood that also offer things like contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing. (7/22)
The New York Times: Disabled Americans Fear What Medicaid Cuts Could Do To Them
Medicaid is best known as a program for low-income people, but it is also a key vehicle by which disabled Americans of varying income levels receive health care that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. June is one of about 4.5 million Americans who depend specifically on its home- and community-based care services, which often come through specialized programs known as waivers. That 4.5 million includes many older Americans who are on Medicare too but can’t get the home care they need through that. (Astor, 7/21)
KFF Health News: Are 5 Million Nondisabled Medicaid Recipients Watching TV All Day? That’s Unsupported
Republicans defended the GOP megabill’s Medicaid changes as targeting a group of people they believe shouldn’t qualify: people who can work but instead choose to stay home and chill. Several Republican politicians and pundits, including CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings, pegged that group’s size at about 5 million people. (Tuquero, 7/22)
AP: Medicaid For Immigrants In US Illegally Being Limited Or Ended In 3 States
For nearly 20 years, Maria would call her sister — a nurse in Mexico — for advice on how to manage her asthma and control her husband’s diabetes instead of going to the doctor in California. She didn’t have legal status, so she couldn’t get health insurance and skipped routine exams, relying instead on home remedies and, at times, getting inhalers from Mexico. ... Things changed for Maria and many others in recent years when a handful of Democrat-led states opened up their health insurance programs to low-income immigrants regardless of their legal status. (Nguyễn and Shastri, 7/21)
Health care costs —
The Hill: Over Half Of Americans Say ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Going To Raise Health Care Costs: Poll
More than half of Americans — 57 percent — said in a new survey that they think the GOP’s sweeping package extending tax cuts and slashing welfare services will increase their health-care costs. Thirteen percent in the CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday said that the “big, beautiful bill” will lower their health-care costs and 33 percent said there will be no impact. (Waldvogel, 7/21)
MedPage Today: Advanced Cancer Patients On Private Insurance Face High Out-Of-Pocket Costs
A diagnosis of cancer brings substantially higher out-of-pocket costs (OOPCs) for privately insured patients, particularly those with more advanced cancer, researchers found. In a cohort of more than 46,000 patients, an incident cancer diagnosis was associated with a mean increase in OOPCs of $592.53 per month in the 6 months after diagnosis, reported Liam Rose, PhD, of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues. (Bassett, 7/21)
