The Trump administration is expected to end a critical Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance payment program that discourages insurers from cherry picking healthier enrollees by compensating them for sicker ones.
The move, should it happen, would rattle insurance companies at the very moment when they’re deciding whether to continue selling ACA plans and setting premiums for 2019.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story:
The suspension ...
health
Vermont to regulate Trump administration’s fraud-prone association health plan rule
Vermont officials are seeking to regulate the Trump administration’s association health plan proposal, introduced in January and finalized by the Department of Labor last month, amid concerns that the plans would make health insurance inaccessible and prone to fraud.
Introduced under the guise of providing consumers with more choice and cheaper options, association health plans (AHP) allow businesses to form associations based on geography or industry and can provide insurance plans...
Vermont to regulate Trump administration’s fraud-prone association health plan rule
Vermont officials are seeking to regulate the Trump administration’s association health plan proposal, introduced in January and finalized by the Department of Labor last month, amid concerns that the plans would make health insurance inaccessible and prone to fraud.
Introduced under the guise of providing consumers with more choice and cheaper options, association health plans (AHP) allow businesses to form associations based on geography or industry and can provide insurance plans...
BREAKING: Federal judge blocks Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements
A federal judge blocked Kentucky’s work requirement waiver Friday, meaning tens of thousands of low-income residents will not need to report working or volunteering at least 20 hours of work a week to keep their health care coverage.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, was to consider whether a slew of changes to Medicaid — work requirements, premiums, lockouts, a whole package of restrictions — should go into effect on Sunday, July 1. He decide...
America is running out of OB/GYNs
There aren’t enough Ob-GYNs in America, and soon there will be even fewer. Half the counties in the US don’t have any practicing OB-GYNs. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) puts the current shortage at 6,000 to 9,000 OB-GYNs countrywide, a numb...
Activists confront Florida attorney general at Mr. Rogers movie, ask what he’d think of her values
Protesters on Friday night demanded Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi explain how her policies fit with Mr. Rogers’ values as she left a movie screening of a new documentary about the kids show host.
Timothy Heberlein, an activist with Organize Florida, captured a video that shows several people shouting at Bondi as she leaves the screening of Won’t You Be My Neighbor with a police escort.
“What would Mr. Rogers think about you and your legacy in F...
Pro-choice movement seizes on chance to overturn decades-old, anti-abortion laws in Virginia
Health care providers are trying to use the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt to strike down five abortion restrictions passed more than 10 years ago in Virginia.
The 2016 Supreme Court decision struck down some of the most regressive restrictions in Texas, as the highest court found they were more burdensome than beneficial for people looking to terminate their pregnancies. Now, providers want the courts to examine Virginia law...
Conservatives are trying to make it the summer of Obamacare repeal
A group of Republicans and Washington D.C. think tanks released a proposal Tuesday that aims to resurrect Obamacare repeal. The consistent chatter around the proposal has drawn ire from the White House and GOP leadership, as the midterms are just months away, and repeal efforts haven’t proved to be winning strategies.
The seven-page whitepaper titled “The Health Care Choices Proposal: Policy Recommendations to Congress” asks lawmakers to scrap the Affordable Care A...
You’re less likely to stay overnight in the hospital for abortion than wisdom teeth removal
Although state lawmakers pushing new abortion restrictions often say they’re just looking out for patients’ health, new research shows those concerns may be unjustified.
An Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) study looking at national emergency room data from 2009 to 2013 found that it’s very rare for people to visit emergency rooms for abortion-related reasons. Only 0.01 percent of all those visits by women aged 15-49 were related to abortions....
The Republicans’ Jekyll And Hyde approach to denting the opioid crisis
This week, the House has been voting on dozens of opioid bills ranging from monitoring prescriptions better to money for recovery coaches — a culmination of lawmakers’ work over the last year and a half. But as Congress works to make a dent in a drug epidemic that kills 115 people daily on average, many of these same lawmakers endorse ideas that undermine how people access addiction treatment.
So how far can piecemeal bills go when the Trump administration and Republican...