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As Democrats enter the final sprint in a campaign where health care is a dominant issue and a House takeover seems achievable, they are split on whether to promise coverage for everyone, which would fuel an already revved-up liberal base, or target centrist voters by campaigning on the more modest goal of fixing the Obama-era…

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma on Wednesday cited reduced Obamacare premiums and expanded choices as evidence that the Trump administration has not “sabotaged” the healthcare law, as charged by Democrats. “For the very first time, rates have [been] going down… I think we have been successful in that area,” Verma said…

The CMS has tweaked one of its coverage processes to ease access to medical devices. There are two Medicare coverage types, one that allows national coverage and one that allows Medicare contractors to pay for services or items on a local or regional basis. The agency has modified the latter.

The Health Care Choices plan would let Idaho find its own solutions to help the working poor. The state would receive a formula grant and gain new flexibility to approve policies that are more affordable than Obamacare. If Idaho votes instead to accept Medicaid expansion, taxpayers, the privately insured, and especially those who need traditional Medicaid would pay an unfortunate price.

Obamacare’s individual mandate has been paid 19.6 million times, forcing Americans to send $8.4 billion to Washington. Over 80% of penalty payers made less than $50k/year.

Obamacare premiums are expected to drop 2 percent nationally next year, and the total number of insurers on the federal exchange will grow for the first time in four years, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday during remarks in Nashville. Azar credited President Donald Trump for the improving insurance marketplace, saying that Trump had proven “better at managing” Obamacare than the law’s namesake.

A top health official in the Trump administration defended Medicaid work requirements Thursday, arguing that its intent isn’t to expel people from the program. “Community engagement requirements are not some subversive attempt to just kick people off of Medicaid,” Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a speech in Washington, D.C.…

Small Business Owners say that the most important issue affecting them is the cost of health care, according to the National Small Business Association’s annual Politics of Small Business Survey. When asked what issues they raised most with elected officials, 40 percent of the surveyed owners said health care costs. Local issues were second on the list at 28 percent and tax reform came third with 37 percent.

Maine’s Republican governor has said federal regulators want to know how Maine would pay for Medicaid expansion. But it’s unclear just how that issue will play out in Maine, the first state to pass Medicaid expansion under Republican President Trump’s administration. States must file routine paperwork to get federal Medicaid expansion funding under former Democratic…

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has filed a new lawsuit against the federal government over a fee for health insurers under the Affordable Care Act. State Attorney General Brad Schimel announced last week the state had filed the lawsuit, along with a motion for a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump’s Administration, as the…