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In the years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), California has employed Medicaid expansion and the state health insurance marketplace – Covered California – to dramatically increase health care coverage.
Still, roughly 3 million state residents, many of them vulnerable, poor, young, old and/or undocumented remain medically uninsured. And more – far more – are dentally uninsured. Continue reading
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Researchers and health policy experts are questioning the value of Medicare’s efforts to reduce 30-day hospital readmissions.
The latest example came this week when Health Affairs published research on what happened after Medicare added hip and knee replacement surgeries to the list of conditions for which it would penalize hospitals for having high rates of readmissions.
Photo: Stuart Moulder via Flickr
Washington has become the first state to move ahead with a version of a public option – an element of the markets that was part of the original 2009 Affordable Care Act legislation but didn’t survive the U.S. Senate.
The idea was to have one government-run health plan within the exchange to enhance competition with private insurers and keep down costs. Continue reading
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About 60 million Americans depend upon Medicare for their health care coverage. But the national health insurance program for retired and disabled people has never covered routine dental services. The gap represents a significant barrier to necessary care for a growing segment of the country’s population, experts say.
An estimated 65% of beneficiaries – nearly 37 million people on Medicare — are dentally-uninsured, according to an issue brief from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation published this spring. Continue reading
Photo: Tim Lumley via Flickr
Tennessee may become the first state in the country to take advantage of the Trump administration’s enthusiasm for block-granting Medicaid – a radical change to the federal-state health program for low-income people created in 1965.
Under recently passed legislation, Tennessee will within six months seek a waiver from CMS to have a block grant – a lump sum of money along with more state flexibility on how to run Medicaid. Continue reading
With all the attention on Medicare for All, it’s easy to forget that congressional Democrats have another important health care agenda: shoring up the Affordable Care Act.
A bunch of proposals are floating around. It’s worth checking out whether your state legislators or regulators have similar ideas of their own to strengthen their individual markets, such as adding more generous subsidies or forms of reinsurance. Here is a sample of proposals that are at least now getting a hearing in the House. (This list is adapted from a summary issued by the House Energy and Commerce Committee for spring hearing — it’s not all-inclusive of every idea of every Democrat.) Continue reading