Medicaid and the Uninsured: Aug. 23, 2024

Biden Administration Blocks Two Private Sector Enrollment Sites From ACA Marketplace
By Julie Appleby Regulators have been under the gun to curb unauthorized Obamacare enrollment and switching of plans. Separately, a pending lawsuit was amended with additional defendants and new allegations regarding tactics to garner greater ACA sales commissions.

Harris-Walz Ticket Sharpens Contrast With Trump-Vance on Health Care
By Stephanie Armour As Democrats convene in Chicago to make official their presidential and vice presidential nominees, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz together are raising the prominence of health care as a 2024 election issue.

Journalists Discuss African Mpox Upsurge, EpiPen Alternative, and Medicaid Unwinding
KFF Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and state media this week to discuss topical stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.

Amid Medicaid ‘Unwinding,’ Many States Wind Up Expanding
By Phil Galewitz The end of pandemic-era Medicaid coverage protections coincided with changes in more than a dozen states to expand coverage for lower-income people, including children, pregnant women, and the incarcerated.

New Lines of Attack Form Against the Affordable Care Act
By Julie Appleby While fighting potential fraud in government programs has long been a conservative rallying cry, recent criticisms of the Affordable Care Act represent a renewed line of attack on the program when repealing it is unlikely.

Medi-Cal’s Dental Care Gap: Getting a Tooth Pulled Is Easy — Much Harder To Get an Implant
By Molly Castle Work California is among a growing number of states that offer dental benefits to low-income residents, but some lawmakers want the state to go further by covering more cleanings and costlier implants. Dentists and health experts worry the approach doesn’t address the root of the problem: Many providers don’t accept Medicaid.

Urgent Care or ER? With ‘One-Stop Shop,’ Hospitals Offer Both Under Same Roof
By Phil Galewitz Hospitals in several states are partnering with a private equity-backed company to offer combined emergency and urgent care in a single building. But patients may not realize prices vary between the two services — often by a lot.

The Politics Holding Back Medicaid Expansion in Some Southern States
By Drew Hawkins, Gulf States Newsroom Ten states have not expanded Medicaid, leaving 1.5 million people ineligible for the state and federal insurance program and also unable to afford private insurance. Seven of those states are in the South, where expansion efforts may have momentum but where lawmakers say political polarization is holding them back.

Misleading Ads Play Key Role in Schemes to Gin Up Unauthorized ACA Sign-Ups, Lawsuit Alleges
By Julie Appleby Misleading money-for-groceries ads helped lure people to call centers where some were enrolled in Affordable Care Act coverage — or switched from their existing plans — without their express permission, a new lawsuit alleges.

A Tale of Two States: Arizona and Florida Diverge on How To Expand Kids’ Health Insurance
By Daniel Chang Both Florida and Arizona want to expand eligibility for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, but their approaches to charging low-income families premiums for the coverage showcase the nation’s ideological divide on helping the disadvantaged.

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': Harris in the Spotlight
For the 2024 campaign, Joe Biden is out, and Kamala Harris is in. As the vice president makes moves toward the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, health policy is resurging as a campaign issue. Meanwhile, Congress tries — and again fails — to make timely progress on the annual government spending bills as abortion issues cause delays. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Stephanie Armour of KFF Health News, and Rachel Cohrs Zhang of Stat join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Anthony Wright, the new executive director of Families USA, about his plans for the organization and his history working with Harris on health topics. 

En medio de las expulsiones de Medicaid, muchos estados deciden expandirlo
By Phil Galewitz Esta ampliación de las afiliaciones en estos estados se producen en medio de la mayor conmoción en las casi seis décadas de historia del programa.

Los contrastes de las fórmulas Harris-Walz y Trump-Vance en la atención de salud
By Stephanie Armour La elección de la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris del gobernador de Minnesota, Tim Walz, como su compañero de fórmula está poniendo el tema de la atención médica en primer plano en la recta final hacia las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre.

Un grupo médico atiende a personas que viven en la calle… y gana dinero
By Angela Hart Estos médicos, enfermeros y trabajadores sociales se están desplegando en las calles de Los Ángeles para ofrecer atención médica y servicios sociales a las personas sin hogar: soldados de un nuevo modelo de negocio que está arraigándose en comunidades de toda California.