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 ...
ThinkProgress
Maine governor ignores major medical organizations, vetoes bill to ban conversation therapy
A growing number of states are moving to ban conversion therapy — dubious, often shame-based methods to persuade kids to change their sexual orientation or gender identity — but Maine’s governor isn’t interested in joining the trend.
Gov. Paul LePage (R) on Friday became the first governor in the nation to veto such a ban, after the Maine legislature approved it last month.
In his veto message, LePage argued the legislation was overly broad and could p...
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...
Clarence Thomas is the most important legal thinker in America
Justice Clarence Thomas is the most important legal thinker of his generation, and the most significant judicial appointment of the last forty years.
No justice did more to reshape the way thousands of the nation’s top lawyers think about the law. No justice did more to shape a political movement’s sense of what it can achieve through litigation. If President George H.W. Bush had chosen someone other than Clarence Thomas to sit on the Supreme Court, the world might look ...
5 types of judges Trump could pick to replace Justice Kennedy
So, that happened.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s occasional swing-voter, looked over at the racist goon in the White House and said “That’s exactly the sort of person I want to choose my successor.”
In fairness to Kennedy, he likely made this decision because the Trump administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to show conservatives that Trump will nominate the same kind of judges who would have been chosen by, say, Presid...
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...
Internal watchdog will investigate Zinke’s Montana land deal tied to Halliburton
The Interior Department’s internal watchdog will probe Secretary Ryan Zinke’s role in a land deal backed by the chairman of one of the world’s largest oil field companies. The announcement follows a week of growing demands from Democrats calling for an investigation into Zinke’s involvement with the deal.
In a letter released Thursday by House Democrats, Interior Deputy Inspector General Mary L. Kendall wrote that the department’s watchdog office would ...
Justice Kennedy deserves this nasty, unflinching sendoff
One of my favorite genres of writing is the charitable obituary written about a political opponent. My remembrance of Judge Robert Bork, the conservative icon President Ronald Reagan tried and failed to put on the Supreme Court, highlighted his more admirable calls for judicial restraint. My obituary of Justice Antonin Scalia was titled “In Praise of Scalia.”
I want to establish these facts up front as I begin my obituary of Justice Anthony ...
Conservative media is freaking out over Ocasio-Cortez’ primary win
Conservative media outlets and right-wing figures had trouble processing New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win Wednesday morning.
Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Democratic socialist, ran on a platform of Medicare for all, tuition-free higher education, criminal justice reform, and called for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to be abolished. On Tuesday evening, she beat out incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) for the state’...