A political party is asking for trouble when it embraces a position on a high-profile issue that most Americans oppose. But it isn’t easy to avoid this pitfall when a majority of the party’s own members endorse that position. As the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination heats up, the Medicare for All plan first proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders risks pushing candidates into this trap.
The stakes are very high: This unforced error could give President Trump his best chance to win re-election in 2020.
The Trump administration is proposing steps aimed at improving patients’ access to their own health data, bolstering efforts to bring information including insurance claims, hospital and doctor records to digital devices such as smartphones.
Federal health regulators unveiled two major proposed regulations closely watched by health and technology companies, amid a growing flood of health data that has become an ever-more-valuable asset. The draft rules touch on a broad array of issues, including technology standards that are supposed to help unlock digital data stored in the electronic health records used by hospitals and doctors to track patients’ care.
The Trump administration is readying guidance that could let states remodel their Medicaid programs to more closely resemble block grant proposals favored by Republicans during their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, according to people familiar with the discussions.
States would still have to adhere to certain requirements but could get far more leeway in how they design their programs, likely in exchange for some type of cap on federal funding, the people said. The guidance would lay out how states could satisfy federal requirements to get waivers to pursue the changes, they said.
After dismissing for years the idea that Democrats’ health care plans would lead to a government takeover, new House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth on Tuesday asked Congress’ top economist to sketch out the options for a government takeover. The Kentucky Democrat also implicitly sketched out the political game plan: enact socialized medicine before patients and taxpayers understand what they’ll be losing.
The U.S. labor market is as healthy as it has been in a long time, especially for those with limited education and skills. Yet enrollment for the nation’s two largest means-tested safety-net programs, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, remains near historic highs.
In previous periods of rising employment and income, takeup rates in assistance programs dropped. This hasn’t been the case in the years following the Great Recession, even after accounting for ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid. What gives?
The Trump administration on Thursday outlined ways states will be allowed to waive parts of the Affordable Care Act, a move that has been welcomed by conservatives, spurred rebukes from Democrats and risks legal action.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which implements the health law, released four templates detailing how states may use waivers. States will get significantly more leeway to change the way they distribute and structure ACA premium subsidies that now go to almost nine million people.
In May New Jersey imposed a health-insurance mandate requiring all residents to buy insurance or pay a penalty. More states will feel pressure to follow suit in the coming year as the federal mandate’s penalty disappears Jan. 1 and state legislatures reconvene, some with new Democratic majorities intent on “protecting” ObamaCare. But conflicts with federal law will make state-level health-insurance mandates ineffective or unduly onerous, and governors and legislatures would do well to steer clear.
In June the U.S. Food and Drug Administration convened a meeting around the problem of illegal opioids sold online and through social media.
“Millennials and those younger rely heavily on social media,” says Alex Khu, assistant director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Global Trade Investigations division. “Criminal organizations recognize that trend and we’re starting to see advertisements and sales of counterfeit or substandard prescription drugs on social media sites.”
At best, counterfeit medications aren’t what they are supposed to be, like sugar pills. At worst, they’re dangerous and even deadly, particularly when fentanyl is involved.
Nationwide “Medicare for all” would cost more than $32 trillion over its first decade. Doubling federal income and corporate taxes wouldn’t be enough to pay for it. No doubt, that cost would be used to justify further restrictions on health-care access.
But the problems with single-payer go well beyond cost. In the past half-century, nationalized programs have consistently failed to provide timely, high-quality medical care compared with the U.S. system. That failure has countless consequences for citizens: pain, suffering and death, permanent disability, and forgone wages.
The midterm elections abruptly shifted the health-care landscape across the country, resulting in a divided Congress that could mean most changes unfold on the state level. Health care was the No. 1 issue among voters this election, according to an AP survey of about 90,000 people. The voting results suggested a rebuke to repeated Republican efforts to roll back the health law, and that many Americans care deeply about issues such as coverage for pre-existing medical conditions. The split between red and blue states means that statehouses will continue to pursue opposite directions in health care. Voters approved Democratic-backed ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid in three states—Idaho, Utah and Nebraska—while rejecting a similar proposal in Montana.