Recent Articles

Congressional appropriators on Thursday approved $90.5 billion in HHS appropriations in a spending package that includes $3.8 billion in opioids funding.  Congress designated $1.5 billion of the opioid funds to state response grants to replace the $500 million from the 21st Century Cures Act due to expire in May of 2019. The funding comes as…

The House Rules Committee says it will be considering a bill that would: 1. Change the ACA employer coverage mandate threshold for “full-time employee” to 40 hours per week, from 30 hours per week; 2. Keep the ACA employer coverage mandate from applying to any month beginning after Dec. 31, 2014, and before Jan. 1, 2019; 3. Postpone the start date of the ACA excise tax on high-cost health benefits packages to Dec. 31, 2022, from the Dec. 31, 2021; …

There are better ways to help people with pre-existing conditions than the failed and flawed health overhaul law. We need a new generation of reform that relies on the experience of states, with new formula grants to help them support those who need help in purchasing coverage and provide real protection for those with pre-existing conditions.

Last year’s war on Capitol Hill over repealing Obamacare might suggest that when it comes to health care, Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything. But we think that’s too simplistic. While Democrats and Republicans remain sharply divided over the future of the Affordable Care Act, the law commonly known as Obamacare, there is bipartisan consensus that…

HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday touted the CMS’ recent push for accountable care organizations to assume more risk. In an address to an advisory group on physician-focused payment models, Azar said the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation would be launching “bold” new models to reform value-based models that include making physicians and hospitals into “accountable navigators of the health system.”

A federal judge overseeing the latest lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act questioned claims from Democratic attorneys general defending the constitutionality of the health law during oral arguments Wednesday.

Unexpected medical bills top the list of health care costs Americans are afraid they will not be able to afford, with 4 in 10 people saying they had received a surprisingly large invoice within the past year, according to a new poll. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 67 percent of people worry about unexpected medical…

President Trump has a message for millions of able-bodied Medicaid recipients: Get a job. Since January, the administration has allowed states to require Medicaid beneficiaries who are not disabled to engage in 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, job training, or school in return for taxpayer-funded health coverage. The purpose of this reform is twofold…

Comments close soon on New Hampshire’s new Medicaid waiver application. The Granite State is one of several states to already have a work requirement approved, and they want to continue it, which is what understandably gets the most attention. But New Hampshire is also making another change to their Medicaid expansion plan, one that helps signal the…

Based on the facts, Obamacare should be a disaster for Democrats this fall. As Bill Clinton observed, people are paying twice as much for half the coverage. Among those who don’t get any federal subsidy (everyone making more than, say, $50,000), premiums have doubled and tripled and there has been a 29% drop off – even though they face…