Medicaid

The Trump administration’s point-of-sale rebate proposal would drastically alter the way rebates are delivered, and pharmacy benefit managers are angling for responsibility to distribute the rebates under the new model.

The effort to expand Medicaid in Kansas failed over the weekend after the Republican-controlled state legislature overcame a two-day standoff with expansion supporters, passed a state budget and adjourned in the middle of the night.

CMS on Thursday (May 2) finalized its repeal of an Obama-era regulation that allowed union dues to be deducted from Medicaid payments made to independent home health workers.

Senate health committee members Tina Smith (D-MN) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) reintroduced a bipartisan bill on Wednesday (May 1) to lower health care spending costs by 50% over 10 years after committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said last month he would soon bring a legislative package together on lowering health costs.

President Donald Trump will meet soon with Democrats to discuss policies aimed at lowering drug costs, according to a White House press statement following a meeting on infrastructure that Trump held with democrats Tuesday (April 30) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Billionaire couple Laura and John Arnold have changed up their political spending game to strengthen their position as a counterforce to pharma’s deep-pocketed efforts to kill state bills to lower drug prices.

Nationwide enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program declined by 2.2 million in 2018, according to new data released Thursday (April 25) by CMS, and a further analysis by Georgetown University concludes that 861,000 fewer children were covered by Medicaid and CHIP.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma said stakeholders can expect more Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models to be mandatory and for all upcoming payment models to include resources for state Medicaid adoption as she teased new rural health models and a long-awaited radiation oncology model in a speech to the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS) on Thursday (April 25).

Members of Congress from both parties are intervening on opposite sides of a hot-button lawsuit that will help determine whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue their state government if the state removes certain medical providers -- such as those that perform abortions -- from the state’s Medicaid program.