Medicaid

House Energy & Commerce Democrats launched an investigation into rising insulin prices on Wednesday (Jan. 30), one day after two other committees highlighted the plight of diabetics who can’t afford new versions of the drug.

The Idaho Supreme Court considered Tuesday (Jan. 29) whether to declare Idaho’s Medicaid expansion plan unconstitutional less than three months after the state’s voters approved it in a ballot initiative, but several of the court’s justices expressed skepticism about arguments advanced by the group that is challenging the expansion.

After Medicaid expansion made dramatic inroads in several red states in 2018, early signs from the opening days of this year’s state legislative sessions suggest that expansion may be on the horizon in even more red states in 2019.

Officials with Families USA wrote in a Health Affairs blog Thursday (Jan. 24) that CMS needs to rewrite the objective of Medicaid to successfully respond to legal challenges to Medicaid work requirements, as advocates for those suing over the requirements say the coverage losses in Arkansas, and expected losses in Kentucky, show that the waivers do not further the point of the program.

Federal Medicaid advisers voted Thursday (Jan. 24) to recommend that Congress alter scheduled payment cuts to disproportionate-share hospitals so the cuts are phased in more gradually and redistributed among states based upon their percentage of low-income residents.

The president, HHS secretary and other administration officials touted the administration’s efforts to lower drug prices at a White House meeting Wednesday (Jan. 23) where the president talked of his amazement upon recently learning that generics work as well as the brands they copy.

The judge overseeing the federal lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s plan to implement Medicaid work requirements denied a request from the Department of Justice to put the case indefinitely on hold during the partial government shutdown.

House Energy & Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ) says his committee will be looking into the Medicaid work requirement waivers, which the Trump administration has approved for eight states, but E&C oversight subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO) says they aren’t at the top of her agenda.

Medicaid advocates are asking the federal judge who has already blocked Kentucky’s work requirement program from going into effect once to do so again, as the latest version of the lawsuit says the version of Kentucky HEALTH that was reapproved by CMS in November shares the same flaws as the prior version.