Category Archives: Medicaid Work Requirements

Reversing course on Trump-era healthcare policy

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Equity, Health Inequity, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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Ahead of a Supreme Court hearing in March to consider the legality of imposing work requirements as a condition of gaining Medicaid coverage, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) were expected to inform states on Friday of plans to rescind the controversial Trump administration policy.

Under the previous administration, ten states had applied for and were approved to use waiver authority to impose work requirements on Medicaid enrollees, and several other states were in the process of submitting applications. Critics (including us) have long held that such requirements, while nominally intended to introduce an element of “personal responsibility” to the safety-net coverage program for low-income Americans, actually serve to hinder access to care, and jeopardize the health status of already vulnerable populations; in addition, the added expense of program infrastructure often exceeds anticipated cost savings.

The policy was a favored project of former CMS administrator Seema Verma, who helped craft a similar program for the state of Indiana before joining the Trump administration. Among states granted waiver authority to impose work requirements, only Arkansas ever fully implemented the policy, before the legality of the waivers was challenged successfully in lower courts.
 
The Biden administration’s recision of work requirements is part of a broader reversal of Trump-era healthcare policies. This week the Justice Department notified the Supreme Court that it was switching sides in the closely watched case questioning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), although the court has already heard the case and is expected to rule this spring. Starting Monday, the Biden team will also reopen the federal insurance marketplace for a special enrollment period, bolstering funding for outreach to ensure those eligible are aware of coverage options. And as part of its proposed COVID relief legislation, the administration plans to increase subsidies to help individuals buy coverage on the exchanges, and to increase funding to support state Medicaid programs—policies that got a boost this week from a broad coalition of healthcare industry groups, including health plans, doctors, and hospitals.

As the administration rounds out its health policy team, we’d expect a continued focus on strengthening the core pillars of the ACA, along with a greater focus on ensuring health equity and addressing disparities. Meanwhile, two key positions remain unfilled: CMS administrator and commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These slots will likely remain open until the looming confirmation battle over Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, has been settled.
 

Taking executive action to bolster the Affordable Care Act

Posted on by • Posted in Abortion, ACA, Essential Health Benefits, Executive Orders, Family Planning, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Preexisting Conditions, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans • Leave a comment

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Thursday was healthcare day at the Biden White House, the latest in a series of themed days during which the President has issued executive orders on topics ranging from COVID response to climate change to racial equity.

Facing a closely divided Congress, the new administration has focused so far on actions it can take unilaterally to advance its agenda, and as President Biden described it at a signing ceremony yesterday, his healthcare agenda is centered on “restoring the Affordable Care Act and restoring Medicaid to the way it was” prior to the Trump administration.

The new executive order reopens the HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace for a “special enrollment period”, lasting from mid-February to mid-May, allowing approximately 15M uninsured Americans in 36 states (including 3M who lost employer-based insurance due to COVID) to sign up for coverage, many subsidized by the federal government.

The order also instructs agencies to review many of the regulatory changes made by the Trump administration, including loosening restrictions on short-term insurance plans, and allowing states to use waivers to implement Medicaid work requirements. (Also included in Thursday’s action was a measure to immediately rescind the ban on taxpayer funding for abortion-related counseling by international nonprofits, the so-called “Mexico City rule”.)

Actually unwinding those Trump-era changes will take months (or possibly years) of regulatory work to accomplish, but Biden’s executive order puts that work in motion. Attention now turns to Congress, which the Biden team hopes will provide funding for increased subsidies for coverage on the Obamacare exchanges, along with allocating money for the administration’s aggressive COVID response plan. 

Yesterday’s executive order is best understood as the starting gun for the lengthy legislative and regulatory process that lies ahead, as the Biden administration tries to bolster the 2010 health reform law, and stamp its mark on American healthcare.

Here’s which Trump-era health policies Biden could roll back — without help from Congress

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How To Roll-Back Data in a Temporal Table

The nearest-term 2021 actions will likely center on bolstering the ACA and Medicaid, after the Trump administration took aim at both.

Even with Democrats’ surprise flipping of the Senate, enacting big healthcare policies in Congress will be a heavy lift given the razor-thin margin in that body and division within the party on strategy.

A clearer path for incoming president Joe Biden is to focus on reversing policies enacted by President Donald Trump at the executive level. Trump’s tenure has been defined in large part by a chipping away at key tenets of the Affordable Care Act, curtailing the Medicaid program and sweeping deregulations critics allege harm consumer protections.

The nearest-term actions the incoming administration is likely to take will center on bolstering the landmark health law and Medicaid, both of which has drawn more bipartisan backing in recent years. Below are what the Biden health administration is likely to roll back quickly after inauguration Wednesday.

Boosting Affordable Care Act marketplace

One of Biden’s first moves may be to open a special enrollment period to sign up for coverage during COVID-19, combined with more outreach and enrollment assistance, Cynthia Cox, director of the ACA program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said.

Beyond COVID-19, it’s likely the Biden administration will restore federal spending on navigation, marketing and outreach for exchange plans. For example, the Trump administration reduced the minimum number of navigator programs in each state using the federal marketplace to one. Biden could return it to two, and might also bring back the requirement that navigators have a physical presence in their service area.

Biden is also likely to unilaterally shore up standards for brokers, and take steps to bolster the exchange website healthcare.gov.

The Trump administration in December proposed a rule encouraging states to privatize their health insurance marketplaces instead of using healthcare.gov, which will make it more difficult for consumers to shop between plans and could divert people to subpar coverage, Tara Straw, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in a December blog post.

The rule doubles down on the administration’s approval of a Georgia waiver to privatize its marketplace in November, but would allow states to follow suit and rely entirely on third-party brokers without a waiver.

That rule is not yet final, so Biden’s HHS will likely remove it from the Federal Register to avoid fragmenting marketplace functions.

Biden could also beef up consumer protections and standards for web brokers, which also sell skimpy short-term health insurance and other non-ACA-compliant coverage.

Biden is also likely to re-expand the annual enrollment period. In 2017, the Trump administration shortened the annual enrollment period to 45 days. Biden’s HHS could use rulemaking to return that period to three full months.

The incoming administration could also reverse previous CMS guidance on Section 1332 waivers that let states subvert or sidestep ACA protections on coverage and cost. The Trump administration proposed a rule in November to codify the waiver standards in regulation but — despite a recent wave of proposed and final regulations as the Trump administration hustles to preserve its health agenda — the rule has not yet been finalized, so HHS could remove it from the Federal Register as well.

By nixing the rule, Biden could also help reverse Trump administration cuts from 2018 that slashed user fees on healthcare.gov plans. The November proposed rule would further decimate the fees, which finance a large swath of marketplace operating expenses, to 2.25% in 2022, versus 3% in 2021 and 3.5% last year.

One key tenet of Biden’s health agenda is to expand ACA subsidies to more low-income Americans, something he can’t do without Congress. However, Biden could use administrative processes to reverse a Trump-era method for indexing marketplace subsidies that kicked in for the 2020 plan year, which led to a small reduction in the financial aid.

Dialing back short-term and association health plans

Biden’s HHS could also roll back the controversial expansion of short-term health plans, bare-bones coverage that isn’t required to cover the 10 essential health benefits under the ACA.

Short-term plans were created as inexpensive stop-gap insurance that could last for up to three months, giving consumers peace of mind while they shopped more comprehensive coverage. However, in 2018, the Trump administration expanded the duration of the plans to 12 months, with a three-year renewal period, and also allowed all consumers — not just those who couldn’t afford other options — to purchase them.

HHS touted the expansion as giving consumers more options, while noting they weren’t meant for everyone. A yearlong investigation by House Democrats found the plans widely discriminate against women and people with pre-existing conditions, and had major coverage limitations leaving unwitting consumers susceptible to surprise medical bills.

The Biden administration could enact stricter limits against the sale of the plans. Through additional rulemaking, HHS could limit future enrollment or make it harder to renew short-term coverage, enact stronger consumer protections or beef up standards to limit their sale.

Though actions around limiting new people coming into the plans are likely, Biden may wait to see if Congress takes up the issue, experts say.

A growing number of Americans in the individual healthcare market have subscribed the inexpensive coverage amid skyrocketing medical costs. Roughly 3 million consumers bought the plans in 2019, a 27% growth from 2018, the investigation found. The explosive growth in use makes it a bit less likely Biden’s HHS would pursue immediate, unilateral movement in the space, for fear of kicking Americans off their coverage.

Biden could also reverse Trump’s regulatory changes that have been friendly to association health plans, which allow small businesses or groups to band together to offer coverage. Though the ACA enhanced oversight of the coverage, the Trump administration in June 2018 issued a rule exempting them from rules regulating individual and small-group employer coverage.

As a result, association health plans were allowed to exclude or charge more on the basis of gender, age or other factors.

A federal court invalidated the rule later that year, and some states took legislative or regulatory actions to discourage the use of association health plans. However, the plans —which cover an estimated 3 million Americans — are still not required to cover all essential health benefits, making them a likely target for the Biden administration.

“It is something that we’re going to see some action on pretty soon, but it’s challenging. You don’t want to take those plans away from people, especially during a pandemic,” Cox said.

Expanding Medicaid coverage, eligibility

The Trump administration has given red states new avenues to constrict their Medicaid programs, which provide safety-net health insurance to some 75 million Americans.

Biden will likely first revise state demonstration waiver policies to expand coverage. Among other measures, Biden could get rid of past CMS guidance allowing states to play with Medicaid eligibility through work requirements, controversial programs tying coverage eligibility to work or volunteering hours, and to cap program funding.

Tennessee this month became the first state to receive a federal green light to convert its Medicaid funding to a block grant, following controversial CMS guidance issued early last year. Republicans tout block grants as a way to lower costs, while Democrats oppose the models as capped funding could lead to restricted benefits down the line, especially during times of emergency like a pandemic or natural disaster.

It’s more difficult to roll back a waiver if it’s already been approved, but Biden could put restrictions on it or reverse the decision before it goes into effect, experts say, though Tennessee would have an opportunity to object.

There are also actions Biden could take to reinstate certain beneficiary protections, which would require regulatory changes, KFF researchers say. Those include revising or stopping pending proposals that would change how Medicaid eligibility is determined in a way that would probably result in previously eligible people losing coverage by enacting more documentation requirements; change the government’s methodology for recouping improper payments; and reduce enhanced federal funding for eligibility workers.

Biden’s administration could also tweak regulations that have already been finalized, including the final Medicaid managed care rule for 2020 that relaxed network adequacy, beneficiary protections and quality oversight.

Biden to reopen ACA insurance marketplaces as pandemic has cost millions of Americans their coverage

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Abortion, ACA, ACA Section 1332 State Innovation Waivers, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Executive Orders, Family Planning, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Block Grants, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Pandemic, Public Option, Supreme Court • Leave a comment
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President Biden is scheduled to take executive actions as early as Thursday to reopen federal marketplaces selling Affordable Care Act health plans and to lower recent barriers to joining Medicaid.

The orders will be Biden’s first steps since taking office to help Americans gain health insurance, a prominent campaign goal that has assumed escalating significance as the pandemic has dramatized the need for affordable health care — and deprived millions of Americans coverage as they have lost jobs in the economic fallout.

Under one order, HealthCare.gov, the online insurance marketplace for Americans who cannot get affordable coverage through their jobs, will swiftly reopen for at least a few months, according to several individuals inside and outside the administration familiar with the plans. Ordinarily, signing up for such coverage is tightly restricted outside a six-week period late each year.

Another part of Biden’s scheduled actions, the individuals said, is intended to reverse Trump-era changes to Medicaid that critics say damaged Americans’ access to the safety-net insurance. It is unclear whether Biden’s order will undo a Trump-era rule allowing states to impose work requirements, or simply direct federal health officials to review rules to make sure they expand coverage to the program that insures about 70 million low-income people in the United States.

The actions are part of a series of rapid executive orders the president is issuing in his initial days in office to demonstrate he intends to steer the machinery of government in a direction far different from that of his predecessor.

Biden has been saying for many months that helping people get insurance is a crucial federal responsibility. Yet until the actions planned for this week, he has not yet focused on this broader objective, shining a spotlight instead on trying to expand vaccinations and other federal responses to the pandemic.

The most ambitious parts of Biden’s campaign health-care platform would require Congress to provide consent and money. Those include creating a government insurance option alongside the ACA health plans sold by private insurers, and helping poor residents afford ACA coverage if they live in about a dozen states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the decade-old health law.

A White House spokesman declined to discuss the plans. Two HHS officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity about an event the White House has not announced, said Monday they were anticipating that the event would be held on Thursday.

According to a document obtained by The Washington Post, the president also intends to sign an order rescinding the so-called Mexico City rule, which compels nonprofits in other countries that receive federal family planning aid to promise not to perform or encourage abortions. Biden advisers last week previewed an end to this rule, which for decades has reappeared when Republicans occupied the White House and vanished under Democratic presidents.

The document also says Biden will disavow a multinational antiabortion declaration that the Trump administration signed three months ago.

The actions to expand insurance through the ACA and Medicaid come as the Supreme Court is considering two cases that could shape the outcome. One case is an effort to overturn rulings by lower federal courts, which have held that state rules, requiring some residents to work or prepare for jobs to qualify for Medicaid, are illegal. The other case involves an attempt to overturn the entire ACA.

According to the individuals inside and outside the administration, the order to reopen the federal insurance marketplaces will be framed in the context of the pandemic, essentially saying that anyone eligible for ACA coverage who has been harmed by the coronavirus will be allowed to sign up.

“This is absolutely in the covid age and the recession caused by covid,” said a health-care policy leader who has been in discussions with the administration. “There is financial displacement we need to address,” said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans the White House has not announced.

The reopening of HealthCare.gov will be accompanied by an infusion of federal support to draw attention to the opportunity through advertising and other outreach efforts. This, too, reverses the Trump administration’s stance that supporting such outreach was wasteful. During its first two years, it slashed money for advertising and for community groups known as navigators that helped people enroll.

It is not clear whether restoring outreach will be part of Biden’s order or will be done more quietly within federal health-care agencies.

Federal rules already allow people to qualify for a special enrollment period to buy ACA health plans if their circumstances change in important ways, including losing a job. But such exceptions require people to seek permission individually, and many are unaware they can do so. Trump health officials also tightened the rules for qualifying for special enrollment.

In contrast, Biden is expected to open enrollment without anyone needing to seek permission, said Eliot Fishman, senior director of health policy for Families USA, a consumer health-advocacy group.

In the early days of the pandemic, the health insurance industry and congressional Democrats urged the Trump administration to reopen HealthCare.gov, the online federal ACA enrollment system on which three dozen states rely, to give more people the opportunity to sign up. At the end of March, Trump health officials decided against that.

During the most recent enrollment period, ending the middle of last month, nearly 8.3 million people signed up for health plans in the states using HealthCare.gov. The figure is about the same as the previous year, even though it includes two fewer states, which began operating their own marketplaces.

Leaders of groups helping with enrollment around the country said they were approached for help this last time by many people who had lost jobs or income because of the pandemic.

The order involving Medicaid is designed to alter course on experiments — known as “waivers” — that allow states to get federal permission to run their Medicaid programs in nontraditional ways. The work requirements, blocked so far by federal courts, are one of those experiments. Another was an announcement a year ago by Seema Verma, the Trump administration’s administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that states could apply for a fundamental change to the program, favored by conservatives, that would cap its funding, rather than operating as an entitlement program with federal money rising and falling with the number of people covered.

“You could think about it as announcing a war against the war on Medicaid,” said Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dan Mendelson, founder of Avalere Health, a consulting firm, said Biden’s initial steps to broaden insurance match his campaign position that the United States does not need to switch to a system of single-payer insurance favored by more liberal Democrats.

The orders the president will sign “are going to do it through the existing programs,” Mendelson said.

A look at the broader Biden healthcare agenda

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Antitrust, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health Equity, Health Inequity, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Price Transparency • Leave a comment

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Beyond the initiatives directly tied to COVID relief, President Biden’s healthcare agenda includes a broader bolstering of the protections and coverage mechanisms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as well as the rollback of several of the previous administration’s regulatory changes. We’ve outlined that agenda in the graphic below, as well as highlighting key members of the Biden healthcare team.

While much will depend on how the COVID pandemic continues to unfold, and how successful Biden is at striking bipartisan compromises with a closely divided Congress, we’re watching closely for the answers to several key questions:

(1) how aggressive can and will the new administration be in unwinding Trump-era reforms, particularly regarding Medicaid work requirements;

(2) what will be the thrust of Biden’s antitrust policy in the healthcare space;

(3) how hard will Biden be willing to push for expanded subsidies for individuals purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges;

(4) how will the Biden team build on the transparency measures implemented by the Trump administration; and

(5) how will the new administration use payment reforms and other regulations to address racial and other disparities in healthcare?

All of that preceded by one burning question that has us holding our breath: who will Biden pick to run the all-important Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services?

Expect a Different Senate Healthcare Agenda if Dems Win Georgia Senate Races

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Individual Health Insurance, Individual Mandate, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Medicare for All, Prescription Drugs • Leave a comment
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A woman dropping her ballot into a ballot box decorated with the flag of Georgia

If Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both win Senate seats in Tuesday’s runoff election, and give the Democrats majority power in that chamber, it will change not only what type of healthcare policies are passed by the Senate but which healthcare bills get brought up in the first place.

“The big thing that it means is that [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) no longer controls what bills even get a vote” in the full chamber, said one policy advocate who asked to speak on background. “Last year, a bill on prescription drug pricing passed on a somewhat bipartisan basis out of the Senate Finance Committee,” with the blessing of committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), “and it never even got a vote. It certainly would have passed the House. So it’s not so much that you’re going to see a lot of partisan bills passed with [Vice President Kamala] Harris casting the tie-breaking vote … it’s that things will actually get voted on.”

Leadership of Senate committees also will change, noted Dan Mendelson, founder of Avalere Health, a consulting firm here. And because of that, “you’d see the Senate Finance Committee focused on coverage, and you’d see kind of an aggressive push to figure out how do we expand exchanges, expand Medicaid, and get more people covered in the U.S.”

One of the top priorities will be shoring up the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he continued. “There is no consensus on how to replace the law if it’s struck down by the Supreme Court. Legislation is necessary on an urgent basis.” Some other issues, such as drug costs, “are more likely to be addressed through regulatory approaches rather than legislative ones initially,” Mendelson said.

Marie Fishpaw, director of domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank here, suggested that expanded federal control of healthcare would be under consideration. “Last Congress, a majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives and 15 Democratic senators have already signaled their support for Medicare for All, so we can expect the left will push for more government control of healthcare should they get more power in Congress,” she said in an email. “Whether that happens by expanding Obamacare with a public option or setting up Medicare for All, it all leads to the same outcome in which government officials in Washington have more decision-making power over the kind of healthcare that Americans receive.”

Joe Antos, PhD, scholar in healthcare and retirement policy at the American Enterprise Institute, another right-leaning think tank, said in an email that “with Harris as the tie breaker, Biden will need to avoid issues where Democrats are not solidly behind him (at least Democratic senators). Drug pricing limits and another COVID spending bill are the most likely to be enacted, perhaps fairly quickly.”

The COVID bill will include “another trillion or two,” Antos said, because “despite all the moaning on TV about lack of state funding, the problem isn’t money — it’s organization and the skilled people to wield the needle. I think there would be more money for states and public health.”

As for the ACA, Biden “might try to reinstate the individual mandate with a penalty/tax, but that would only be a political show since the mandate really hasn’t mattered much in increasing number with insurance (after the first 2 years of ACA enrollment),” said Antos. “Increasing access to the premium subsidy is a possibility, but the true left won’t like it.” On the regulatory side, Antos predicted that Biden will “rewrite Medicaid guidance and reject waiver projects that tighten Medicaid rules,” such as waivers seeking to add work requirements for Medicaid.

Like Mendelson, Antos expects to see Biden push for action to lower prescription drug prices — possibly legislatively. “He would even get some Republican votes for limiting what Medicare will pay for Part B drugs and maybe even Part D drugs,” he said. “This isn’t Medicare ‘negotiating’ drug prices — it’s just old-fashioned price setting, which Medicare has done for decades.” Such a thing would be easier to implement in Part B “since we are already in a price-setting regime.” And, because the price controls would only be in effect for Medicare, “prices paid by everyone else will likely rise,” Antos added.

Less likely to succeed is Biden’s proposal for an advisory board that would consider drugs’ therapeutic value in its recommendations on prices. That is “a complex version of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which never got off the ground,” Antos said.

Biden also may try to ease rules related to funding of reproductive healthcare organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide abortions, but legislative action in that regard would be a tough slog, Antos said, even with a nominally Democrat-controlled Senate. But Biden “could do something administratively” as the Trump administration has done in the other direction.

Senate confirmations of Cabinet members, such as California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services, would also be smoother under a majority-Democratic Senate, said Mendelson.

And what if the Republicans retain the Georgia Senate seats — and their majority? “The primary strategy the Republican leadership has pushed is to slow things down and to kill major legislation, and that goal gets facilitated if there’s a Republican majority,” he added. With McConnell keeping control of the Senate’s agenda, “things will run much more slowly and there will be a mentality of not doing things.”

But it could go the other way as well, Mendelson noted. “The optimistic scenario is that Senate Republicans feel like they have something lose in the midterms in 2022, and they need to build some sort of record of legislative accomplishments.” In that case, premium support for ACA marketplace enrollees and bringing down costs in the small-group insurance market might be in play, he said.

Nebraska gets the nod for Medicaid work requirements

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Access & Quality of Healthcare, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Deferred Healthcare, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Lawsuit, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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Federal judge blocks Kentucky's Medicaid work requirements

This week Nebraska became the latest state to receive waiver authority from the Trump administration to implement work requirements as part of its Medicaid expansion program.

The program, called “Heritage Health Adult”, will be a two-tiered system, with expansion-eligible adults choosing between “Basic” and “Prime” coverage levels. The lower tier will provide coverage for physical and behavioral health services, with a prescription drug benefit, and is open to adults not eligible for traditional Medicaid with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty line.

“Prime” enrollees will get additional dental, vision, and over-the-counter drug benefits, in exchange for agreeing to 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, or active job seeking, which must be reported to the state.

Nebraska voters approved the Medicaid expansion two years ago, although enrollment only began this August, and the work-linked demonstration project is slated to start next year. An estimated 90,000 additional Nebraskans are expected to enroll in Medicaid under the expanded program.
 
The approval of Nebraska’s Medicaid work requirement comes a week after the Trump administration approved a partial expansion of Medicaid in Georgia, called “Pathways to Coverage”, which is also tied to a requirement to seek or engage in employment or education activities.

The Georgia program also requires premium payments by eligible adults who make between 50 and 100 percent of the federal poverty line. Court challenges will inevitably ensue for both the Nebraska and Georgia programs—only Utah has successfully implemented Medicaid work requirements, with 16 other state programs either pending approval, held up in court, or awaiting implementation. We continue to be deeply skeptical of Medicaid work requirements, and believe they only serve to deter those who would otherwise qualify for coverage from enrolling, and that the expense of their implementation and ongoing operation often outweighs any savings to the state.

The argument that “work encourages health”, often advanced by proponents of work requirements, gets it exactly backwards—rather, health security encourages work, a reality that has become ever more urgent as the COVID pandemic has drawn on. 

As the economy continues to falter, Medicaid’s importance as a safety net program grows ever greater, and work requirements create an unhelpful obstacle to basic healthcare access.

State autonomy versus a fundamental right: VP debate will spotlight divergent healthcare views

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Leadership Decentralized, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Medicare, Medicare Advance Payments, Medicare for All, Mortality, National Strategy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Public Option, Supreme Court, The CARES Act, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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Mike Pence and Kamala Harris take the debate stage Wednesday night. (Kamala (Harris photo by Ethan Miller; Pence photo by Joshua Roberts. Both Getty Images)

The undercurrent of the VP debate is the age and health of the two men vying for the presidency.

The two remaining presidential debates, scheduled for October 15 and 22, are in question due to President Trump’s positive COVID-19 and quarantine status, making the vice presidential debate this Wednesday at 9 p.m. even more important than VP debates of past elections.

The undercurrent in the debate consists of the ages of challenger Biden, who is 77 and turning 78 before the end of the year, and Trump, 74, who has been hospitalized for COVID-19 and was released from Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Monday afternoon. Trump has said he plans to debate Biden on October 15.

This VP debate is big, said Paul Keckley, a healthcare policy analyst and managing editor of the Keckley Report. 

“The reason is not so much the two are debating,” Keckley said. “We have a 77- year-old challenger and a 74-year-old incumbent. Voters are expecting the odds are one will become disabled and the vice president is going to step in. That’s the undercurrent of this debate.”

Healthcare is an obvious dominant theme Wednesday night beyond the health of the two men seeking the presidency. 

It is expected that Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris will challenge Vice President Mike Pence on his role heading the coronavirus task force when close to 7.5 million people in this country have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 200,000 have died.

Pence will likely challenge Harris on her support for Medicare for All before she backtracked to support Biden’s public-private option for healthcare coverage.

Pence and Harris are expected to lay out the healthcare plans of their respective Republican and Democratic nominees less than four weeks before the election, in a way the lead candidates failed to get across during the first presidential debate that presented more chaos than clarity.

TRUMP AND BIDEN PLANS

Trump and Biden differ fundamentally on whether the federal government should be involved in the business of providing healthcare coverage.

Trump’s guiding principles rest on the pillar of state autonomy as opposed to a federalized healthcare system and Biden’s maxim that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. 

Trump believes that private solutions are better than government solutions, according to Keckley. He is much less restrained on private equity and the Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny of vertical integration. States become the gateway to the market as private solutions are sold to states as innovation.

Trump’s other concept is that the door to engaging consumers in healthcare is price transparency. His view is that price transparency will spawn consumer engagement.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, who was appointed by Trump in 2016 based largely on the recommendation of Pence, is instituting a rule, starting January 1, 2021, requiring hospitals to have price transparency for 300 shoppable services. Hospitals are being required to make their contract terms with payer accessible.

This is separate from CMS’s interoperability rule aimed at payers that also goes into effect on January 1.

Trump believes healthcare is a personal responsibility, not a public obligation. To Trump, healthcare is a marketplace where there are winners and losers, according to Keckley.

Biden has a more developed policy platform on making healthcare a universal right, starting with strengthening the Affordable Care Act that was passed while Biden was vice president during President Barack Obama’s terms.

Biden wants to increase the eligibility for tax subsidies in the ACA up to 400% of the federal poverty level, which would expand access to subsidized health insurance.

He also wants to reduce the affordability threshold for employer insurance. Currently, if employees pay more than 9.7% of their adjusted income for their workplace coverage, they can seek a plan in the ACA marketplace. Biden would lower that eligibility for ACA coverage to 8.5%, opening the door for many more consumers to be insured through the ACA, at a lower cost.

Biden would also lower the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 60.

For companies such as manufacturing and transportation, in which individuals can retire after 30 years of service, this lets them into the Medicare system earlier to fill that gap between retirement and Medicare eligibility.

Biden’s public option would create insurance plans that would compete with private plans. 

The other factor to watch on the Biden side, Keckley said, is his clear focus on equity and diversity in healthcare. 

AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Biden wants to strengthen Obamacare while Trump is actively pursuing a repeal of the law through the Supreme Court. 

President Trump’s debate prep and the White House Rose Garden event announcing the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, border on the definition of super spreader events.

The Justices, perhaps with the addition of Trump’s pick, Amy Coney Barrett, if there are enough Republican senators well enough and in attendance to vote for confirmation, are scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case brought by 18 GOP-led states on November 10, the week after the election.

Senators must be present to vote, and Republicans, who have a majority of 53 to 47 seats, need a four-vote majority. Two Republican senators – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – have said they wouldn’t vote on a nominee prior to the election. Vice President Mike Pence could cast the deciding vote in a tie.

Three Republican senators have tested positive for the coronavirus. Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who sit on the Judiciary Committee, tested positive for COVID-19 days after attending the White House Rose Garden event on September 26. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is now the third to test positive, though he did not attend that event.

There was a lack of social distancing and mask wearing at both the Rose Garden nomination and at a meeting between Trump and staff for debate prep. Twelve people in Trump’s inner circle, including his wife Melania, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, have tested positive since attending.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote in an email to GOP senators obtained by CNN that he needs all Republican senators back in Washington by October 19.

COVID-19

Trump announced in a tweet Monday that he would be leaving Walter Reed later in the afternoon, saying he felt “really good!” and adding, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

Trump has been criticized for leaving the hospital on Monday to take a drive-by ride to wave to supporters. Attending physician Dr. James Phillips called the action “insanity” and “political theater” that put the lives of Secret Service agents in the car with him at risk.

Trump has downplayed the virus in an effort to reopen the country and the economy, and has put the blame on China, where the coronavirus originated.

Trump told Biden during the debate, “We got the gowns; we got the masks; we made the ventilators. You wouldn’t have made ventilators – and now we’re weeks away from a vaccine.” 

Biden puts the blame squarely on Trump for delaying action to stop the spread.

Biden said during the debate: “Look, 200,000 dead. You said over seven million infected in the United States. We in fact have 5% or 4% of the world’s population – 20% of the deaths. Forty thousand people a day are contracting COVID. In addition to that, about between 750 and 1,000 people, they’re dying. When [Trump] was presented with that number he said ‘It is what it is’ – what it is what it is – because you are who you are. That’s why it is. The president has no plan. He hasn’t laid out anything.”

Biden said that back in July he laid out a plan for providing protective gear and providing money the House passed to get people the help they need to keep their businesses open and open schools. 

Under Trump’s Administration, Congress passed $175 billion in provider relief funds for hospitals, small businesses, individuals and others – $100 billion from the CARES Act and $75 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act.

MEDICAID EXPANSION

CMS Administrator Seema Verma was healthcare advisor to Pence while he was governor of Indiana. Her consulting firm, SVC, Inc., worked closely with Pence to design Indiana’s Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. They developed a unique Medicaid expansion program called Health Indiana Plan 2.0, which mandated low income adults above the poverty level pay monthly premiums for their healthcare. 

Members who did not pay faced being disenrolled for six months. 

As administrator, Verma has initiated similar work requirements for Medicaid coverage nationwide.

While as governor Pence implemented Medicaid expansion, as vice president he has supported torpedoing the ACA, and has pushed the Graham-Cassidy plan for healthcare reform that would have replaced the ACA.

DRUG PRICES

Neither Trump nor Biden has taken on the pharmaceutical industry in a meaningful way, though both have voiced a strong belief that drug manufacturers are egregious to the system, according to Keckley.

“Both camps are saying, we’re really going to take them on,” he said. 

During the debate, Trump said he was cutting drug prices by allowing American consumers to buy drugs from Canada and other countries under a favored nation status. 

“Drug prices will be coming down, 80 or 90 percent,” Trump said during the debate, telling Biden he hadn’t done anything similar during his 47 years in government.

If Trump gets a second term, there will likely be more industry folks in his circle, following up on his first term of stacking his cabinet with business people.

Biden would be more likely to lean toward a blend of public health officials and industry executives. There would be more of a spotlight on wealth creation in healthcare and executive pay.

In the $1.1 trillion world of prescription drugs, the United States makes up 40% of the market. 

“We’re the hub of the prescription drug industry,” Keckley said. 

Election 2020: Trump and Biden’s starkly diverging views on healthcare

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Antitrust, Clinical Testing, Competition, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Essential Health Benefits, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Executive Orders, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Medicaid, Medicaid Block Grants, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Medicare, Medicare for All, Medicare Site Neutral Payment, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Pharmaceutical Industry, Preexisting Conditions, Public Option, Scientists, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Supreme Court, Surprise Bills, Underinsured, Uninsured, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/presidential-election-2020-trump-biden-different-healthcare-policies-ACA-coronavirus/585184/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-10-01%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:29992%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

Spoiler: the 2 nominees differ on almost everything.

President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden’s starkly contrasting views on healthcare were laid bare during this week’s chaotic debate. But some major industry executives noted at a recent conference they’ve done relatively well under Trump and could likely weather a Biden presidency, given his moderate stance and rejection of liberal dreams of “Medicare for All.”

The former vice president stresses incremental measures to shore up President Barack Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act. Trump’s campaign website has no list of healthcare priorities, making his record even more relevant to attempts to forecast his future policies.

“I think a lot of the president’s second term agenda will be extensions of things he’s done in his first term,” Lanhee Chen, domestic policy director at Stanford University’s Public Policy program, said at AHIP in September.

Either way, the impact of whoever lands in the White House next year still matters for the industry’s future.

And 33 seats in the Senate are also up for grabs in November, complicating the outlook. Two scenarios would likely lead to health policy gridlock, according to analysts and DC experts: Trump wins regardless of Senate outcome, or Biden wins and Republicans maintain control of the Senate. A third scenario, where Biden wins and Democrats retake the Senate, would be the most negative for healthcare stocks, Jefferies analysts say, while the other two outcomes would be a net positive or mostly neutral.

Here’s a look at where the candidates stand on the biggest healthcare issues: the coronavirus pandemic, the Affordable Care Act, changes to Medicare and Medicaid and lowering skyrocketing healthcare costs.

COVID-19 response

Trump

Of all wealthy nations, the U.S. has been particularly unsuccessful in mitigating the pandemic. The U.S. makes up 4% of the global population, but accounted for 23% of all COVID-19 cases and 21% of all deaths as of early September.

Public health experts assign the majority of the blame to an uncoordinated federal response, with the president electing to take a largely hands-off approach to the virus that’s killed nearly 207,000 people in the U.S. to date. That backseat stance is unlikely to change if Trump is elected to a second term.

In March, Trump said a final COVID-19 death toll in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 Americans would mean he’s “done a very good job.”

Critics blame shortages of supplies like test materials, personal protective equipment and ventilators, especially in the crucial early days of the pandemic, on Trump’s approach. States and healthcare companies have also reported challenges with shifting federal guidelines on topics from risk of infection to hospital requirements for reporting COVID-19 caseloads.

Trump has also pushed unproven treatments for COVID-19, giving rise to concerns about political influence on traditionally nonpartisan agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These concerns have colored Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s public-private partnership to fast-track viable vaccines. The operation received $10 billion in funds from Congress, but administration officials have also pulled $700 million from the CDC, even as top health officials face accusations of trying to manipulate CDC scientific research publications.

Fears that political motivations, not clinical rigor, are driving the historically speedy timeline could lower public trust in a vaccine once it’s eventually approved.

Trump has also repeatedly refused to endorse basic protections like widespread mask wearing, often eschewing the face covering himself in public appearances. He’s consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic, saying it’ll go away on its own while suggesting falsely that rising COVID-19 cases were solely due to increased testing.

While Trump’s list of priorities for his second term include “eradicating COVID-19,” the plan is short on details. His most aggressive promise has been approval of a vaccine by the end of this year and creating all “critical medicines and supplies for healthcare workers” for a planned return to normal in 2021, along with refilling stockpiles to prepare for future pandemics.

Biden

Biden, for his part, would likely work to enact COVID-19 legislation and dramatically change the role of the federal government in pandemic response first thing if elected.

The Democratic candidate says he would re-assume primary responsibility for the pandemic. He plans to “dramatically scale up testing” and “giving states and local governments the resources they need to open schools and businesses safely,” per an August speech in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden says he’d take a backseat to scientists and allow FDA to unilaterally make decisions on emergency authorizations and approvals.

The candidate supports reopening an ACA enrollment period for the uninsured, eliminating out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment, enacting additional pay and protective equipment for essential workers, increasing the federal match rate for Medicaid by at least 10%, covering COBRA with 100% premium subsidies during the emergency, expanding unemployment insurance and sick leave, reimbursing employers for sick leave and giving them tax credits for COVID-19 healthcare costs.

Trump opposes most of these measures, though he did sign COVID-19 relief legislation that upped the Medicaid match rate by 6.2% and extended the COBRA election period, though without subsidies.

Biden has said he’d be willing to use executive power for a national mask mandate, though ensuring compliance would be difficult. He’d also rejoin the World Health Organization, which Trump pulled the U.S. out of in May.

Affordable Care Act

Trump

On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order saying: “It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” But after the Republican repeal-and-replace effort floundered in 2017, the administration began steadily chipping away at key tenets of the decade-old law through regulatory avenues.

Trump has maintained he’ll protect the 150 million people with preexisting conditions in the U.S. But despite publicly promising a comprehensive replacement plan on the 2015 campaign trail (and at least five times this year alone), Trump has yet to make one public. The president did in September sign a largely symbolic executive order that it’s the stance of his administration to protect patients with preexisting conditions.

The president doesn’t mention the ACA in his list of second term priorities. The omission could have been intentional, as Trump is backing a Republican state-led lawsuit seeking to overturn the sweeping law, now pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and scheduled for oral arguments one week after the election.

The death of liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts the law in an even more precarious position.

And Trump’s health agencies have enacted myriad policies keeping the law from functioning as designed.

The president signed legislation zeroing out the individual mandate penalty requiring people to be insured in 2017. The same year, he ended cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, suggesting that would cause the ACA to become “dead.” But the marketplace generally stabilized.

The administration has also increased access to skimpier but cheaper coverage that doesn’t have to comply with the 10 essential health benefits under the ACA. The short-term insurance plans widely discriminate against people with pre-existing health conditions, even as a growing number of Americans, facing rising healthcare costs, enrolled, according to a probe conducted by House Democrats this year.

Trump has also encouraged state waivers that promote non-ACA plans, cut funding for consumer enrollment assistance and outreach, shortened the open enrollment period and limited mid-year special enrollments.

​Despite his efforts, the ACA has grown in popularity among voters on both sides of the aisle, mostly due to provisions like shoring up pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parent’s insurance until age 26.

Biden

If elected, Biden would likely roll back Trump-era policies that allowed short-term insurance to proliferate, and restore funding for consumer outreach and assistance, political consultants say.

Building on the law is the linchpin of Biden’s healthcare plan. The nominee has pledged to increase marketplace subsidies to help more people afford ACA plans through a number of policy tweaks, including lowering the share of income subsidized households pay for their coverage; determining subsidies by setting the benchmark plan at the pricier “gold” level; and removing the current cap limiting subsidies to people making 400% of the federal poverty level or below.

Biden maintains as a result of these changes, no Americans would have to pay more than 8.5% of their annual income toward premiums. They could save millions of people hundreds of dollars a month, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Commercial payers mostly support these efforts, hoping they’ll stabilize the exchanges.

But a second prong of Biden’s health strategy is deeply unpopular with private insurers: the public option. Biden’s called for a Medicare-like alternative to commercial coverage, available to anyone, including people who can’t afford private coverage or those living in a state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid.

The rationale of the public plan is that it can directly negotiate prices with hospitals and other providers, lowering costs across the board. However, market clout will depend on enrollment, which is still to-be-determined.

Critics see the plan, which by Biden’s estimate would cost $750 billion over 10 years, as a down payment on Medicare for All. And the private sector worries it could threaten the very profitable healthcare industry, which makes up about a fifth of the U.S. economy.

Medicare

Trump

Neither Trump nor Biden supports Medicare for All, dashing the hopes of supporters of the sweeping insurance scheme for at least another four years.

“It has a pulse — it’s not dead — I just don’t see it happening in any near term,” John Cipriani, vice president at public affairs firm Global Strategy Group, said at AHIP.

Trump has promised to protect Medicare if elected to a second term, and it’s unlikely he’d make any major changes to the program’s structure or eligibility requirements, experts say.

But Medicare is quickly running out of money, and neither Trump nor Biden has issued a complete plan to ensure it survives beyond 2024. Political consultants think it’ll teeter right up to the edge of insolvency before lawmakers feel compelled to act.

The president’s administration has allowed Medicare to pay for telehealth and expanding supplemental benefits in privately run Medicare Advantage programs, efforts that would likely bleed into his second term — or Biden’s first, given general bipartisan support on both, experts say.

Under Trump, HHS did pass a site-neutral payment policy, cutting Medicare payments for hospital outpatient visits in a bid to save money. But Democratic lawmakers have argued Trump’s calls to get rid of the federal payroll tax, which partially funds Medicare, could throw the future of the cash-strapped program in jeopardy.

The president has also signed legislation experts say accelerated insolvency, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, which repealed the ACA’s Cadillac tax — a tax on job-based insurance premiums above a certain level.

Nixing that tax lowered payroll tax revenue, also dinging Medicare’s shrinking trust fund.

Trump’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year floated culling about $450 billion in Medicare spending over a decade. And repealing the ACA would also nix provisions that closed the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole,” that added free coverage of preventive services and reduced spending to strengthen Medicare’s winnowing Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.

Biden

Biden has proposed lowering the Medicare age of eligibility to 60 years, with the option for people aged 60-64 to keep their coverage if they like it. The idea is popular politically, though providers oppose it, fearful of losing more lucrative commercial revenue.

It would make about 20 million more people eligible for the insurance, but could also add even more stress onto the program, experts say. Biden’s campaign says it would be financed separately from the current Medicare program, with dollars from regular tax revenues, and will reduce hospital costs.

Biden also says he’d add hearing, vision and dental benefits to Medicare.

Medicaid

Trump

Trump’s tenure has also been defined by repeated efforts to prune Medicaid. The president has consistently backed major cuts to the safety net insurance program, along with stricter rules for who can receive coverage. That’s likely to continue.

Republican lawmakers maintain the program costs too much and discourages low-income Americans from getting job-based coverage, and have enacted policies trying to privatize Medicaid. The Trump administration took a step toward a long-held conservative dream earlier this year, when CMS invited state waivers that would allow states to deviate from federal standards in program design and oversight, in exchange for capped funding.

So far, no states have enacted the block grants.

The administration also aggressively encouraged states to adopt work requirements, programs tying Medicaid coverage to work or volunteering hours. A handful of states followed suit, but all halted implementation or rolled back the idea following fierce public backlash and legal ramifications.

And repealing the ACA would ax Medicaid expansion, which saved some 20,000 lives between 2014 and 2017, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Biden

Biden, however, wants to preserve expansion, and would take a number of other steps to bolster the program, including increasing federal Medicaid funding for home- and community-based services. The roughly 4.8 million adults in states that elected not to expand Medicaid would be automatically enrolled into his public option, with no premium and full Medicaid benefits.

Additionally, states that have expanded Medicaid could elect to move their enrollees into the public option, with a maintenance-of-effort payment.

Lowering costs of drugs and services

Trump

Efforts to lower prescription drug costs have defined Trump’s healthcare agenda in his first term, and been a major talking point for the president. That’s more than likely to continue into a second term, experts say, despite a lack of results.

Trump did cap insulin costs for some Medicare enrollees, effective 2021. He also signed legislation in 2018 banning gag clauses preventing pharmacists from telling customers about cheaper options.

But despite fiery rhetoric and a litany of executive orders, Trump has made little if any concrete progress on actually lowering prices. One week into 2020, drugmakers had announced price hikes for almost 450 drugs, despite small price drops earlier in Trump’s tenure.

Trump has proposed several ideas either dropped later or challenged successfully by drugmakers in court, including allowing patients to import drugs from countries like Canada, banning rebates paid to pharmacy benefit manufacturers in Medicare and forcing drugmakers to disclose the list prices of drugs in TV ads.

The president has signed recent executive orders to lower costs largely viewed as pre-election gambits, including one tying drug prices in Medicare to other developed nations and another directing his agencies to end surprise billing. Implementation on both is months away. Trump has also promised to send Medicare beneficiaries $200 in drug discount cards before the election, an effort slammed as vote-buying that would cost Medicare at least $6.6 billion.

Both Trump and Biden support eliminating surprise bills but haven’t provided any details how. That “how” is important, as hospitals and payers support wildly different solutions.

Biden

Biden also has a long list​ of proposals to curb drug costs, including allowing the federal government to negotiate directly with drug manufacturers on behalf of Medicare and some other public and private purchasers, with prices capped at the level paid by other wealthy countries. Trump actually supported this proposal in his 2016 campaign, but quickly dropped it amid fierce opposition from drugmakers and free market Republican allies.

Biden would also cap out-of-pocket drug costs in Medicare Part D — but wouldn’t ban rebates, as of his current plan, allow consumers to import drugs (subject to safeguards) and eliminate tax breaks for drug advertising expenses.

He would also prohibit prices for all brand-name and some generic drugs from rising faster than inflation under Medicare and his novel public option. Biden would create a board to assess the value of new drugs and recommend a market-based price, in a model that’s shown some efficacy in other wealthy countries like Germany.

Both Biden and Trump say they support developing alternative payment models to lower costs. But they diverge on the role of competition versus transparency in making healthcare more affordable. In a rule currently being challenged in court, Trump’s HHS required hospitals to disclose private negotiated prices between hospitals and insurers, with the hope price transparency will allow consumers to shop between different care sites and shame companies into lowering their prices.

Biden, by comparison, says he would enforce antitrust laws to prevent anti-competitive healthcare consolidations, and other business practices that jack up spending. Trump has been mum on the role of M&A in driving healthcare costs, and inherited a complacent Federal Trade Commission that’s done little to reduce provider consolidation. Until a contentious hospital merger in February this year, the FTC hadn’t opposed a hospital merger since 2016.

 

 

 

 

Trump Medicaid proposal sparks bipartisan warnings

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, American Hospital Association (AHA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicaid, Medicaid Work Requirements, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers, Unintended Consequences, Vulnerable Populations • Leave a comment

Trump Medicaid proposal sparks bipartisan warnings

Image result for Medicaid cuts

Republicans and Democrats alike are warning that a recent proposal from the Trump administration could lead to billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, forcing states to eliminate benefits, reduce enrollment or cut payments to health providers.

In a rare sign of unity, hospitals, insurers, patient advocates and members of both political parties are on the same page in their opposition to the Trump administration’s plan, and most have urged the administration to withdraw a proposal they say would “cripple” Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that provides health care for the poor.

The proposal hasn’t received as much attention as the administration’s other efforts to reform Medicaid, such as implementing work requirements, but it could have the most damaging effect because of how far-reaching it is, experts argue.

“This is high stakes,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, whose board urged the administration to completely withdraw the proposal.

Trump allies have also voiced their concerns.

“The Medicaid fiscal accountability rule is a concern to my governor, and the stakeholders are worried the rule as proposed could lead to hospital closures, problems with access to care and threaten the safety net,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar last week during a hearing on the agency’s fiscal 2021 budget request.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned during the same hearing that the proposal could “dramatically affect Medicaid eligibility” and “wreak havoc on budgets in red states and blue states all across the country.”

The proposal would overhaul the complex payment arrangements states use to raise money for their Medicaid programs — funding that is then matched by the federal government.

The administration argues some states use questionable methods of raising funds so they can leverage more money from Washington. One approach used by states consists of taxing providers who stand to benefit from more Medicaid funds flowing into the state.

But governors and state Medicaid directors argue those long-standing arrangements are both legal and necessary as states look for ways to keep up with escalating health care costs.

The proposal would allow the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to limit the extra payments from states to providers serving high numbers of uninsured patients or Medicaid patients. Opponents say such changes could result in providers deciding not to accept Medicaid patients.

Dozens of states wrote public comments to CMS Administrator Seema Verma, urging her to withdraw the proposal, including conservative states that are typically supportive of her work.

“If the rule is finalized as proposed, it will immediately disrupt the Medicaid program in Alabama and we believe across the country,” wrote Stephanie McGee Azar, commissioner of the Alabama Medicaid Agency, who is not related to Alex Azar. She added that it would have “unintended consequences that will affect access to care in Alabama to our most vulnerable populations.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) administration warned the effect of the proposal would be “immediate and crippling.”

Meanwhile, a letter signed by state Medicaid officials in Michigan, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Louisiana, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Washington argued the proposal would likely “force states to cut Medicaid eligibility, benefits and/or provider payments, which would have the effect of decreasing low-income individuals’ access to important health care services.”

The public comment period closed Jan. 31. CMS now needs to go through the 4,000 comments before deciding whether to finalize the rule.

Verma and her supporters argue the proposal is not intended to cut Medicaid but instead aims to improve transparency and accountability in the $600 billion a year program.

“It’s not surprising providers and the states are objecting when they are getting federal money for free,” argued Brian Blase, who previously served on President Trump’s National Economic Council, where he worked on health care issues. “They don’t want transparency and they don’t want their financing gimmicks checked.”

Blase predicted the rule, if implemented as proposed, would reduce Medicaid spending by a “very small amount.”

Verma also pushed back on opponents, criticizing a study commissioned by the American Hospital Association that estimated the rule could reduce Medicaid funding by as much as $49 billion annually.

“This proposed rule is not intended to reduce Medicaid payments, and alarmist estimates that this rule, if finalized, will suddenly remove billions of dollars from the program and threaten beneficiary access are overblown and without credibility,” she wrote in a blog post last week.

Some experts disagree with her, pointing to other actions the administration has taken on Medicaid, including work requirements.

“I think one should view this rule not in isolation, but in combination with the broader agenda of this administration on Medicaid,” said Edwin Park, a research professor at Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. “Their ultimate agenda is about cutting the Medicaid program, changing the Medicaid program as it currently stands.”

State officials have complained that they were not asked for their input before the proposal was released, nor did CMS conduct a regulatory analysis of potential effects.

A nonpartisan agency that advises Congress on Medicaid policy wrote to Alex Azar advising he not implement the rule because CMS has not fully assessed the possible effects.

“The Commission is concerned that the proposed changes could reduce payments to providers in ways that could jeopardize access to care for Medicaid enrollees,” the advisory group wrote.

For example, Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services has planned to make $86 million in supplemental payments to hospitals in fiscal 2020, which began July 1.

The rule “would require significant changes to MaineCare and could force the State to cut back on eligibility or services,” Jeanne Lambrew wrote in the department’s public comment.

The administration hasn’t given any signals that it plans to back down from the proposal, despite considerable pushback from stakeholders, states and bipartisan members of Congress.

“We will work with states to help them recreate their practices in ways that are in conformity with the statute and try to be fair and equitable in all our dealings with states,” Alex Azar told lawmakers last week on Capitol Hill.