Medicaid

The House Energy & Commerce Committee on Wednesday (July 17) unanimously approved legislation that would delay Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) cuts, reauthorize Medicaid funding to the territories with increased oversight of Puerto Rico’s funding, fund community health centers and other extenders for four years, and tackle surprise billing.

Senate Finance Committee Republicans asked HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday (July 17) to provide them with information about Medicaid spending and fraud control in Puerto Rico in light of the recent corruption scandal in the Puerto Rican government.

Nearly all the Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee asked ranking Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) to push for government price negotiation authority to be included in the committee’s drug-pricing package.

CMS on Thursday (July 11) proposed to rescind Medicaid fee-for-service access monitoring requirements and come up with a uniform way to analyze Medicaid access across managed care, fee-for-service and home and community-based waiver programs.

President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw a proposed rule to eliminate rebates in Medicare Part D and Medicaid managed care because of concerns the rule would raise premiums for Part D beneficiaries, an administration official told Inside Drug Pricing.

HHS is looking for 15 stakeholders to join a department-wide quality summit to put together a Health Quality Roadmap as required by President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on price transparency.

Amid fears of large coverage losses, New Hampshire on Monday (July 8) postponed the enforcement of its Medicaid work requirements for three months as state data showed that most of the beneficiaries who are subject to the new requirements were not in compliance in the first month of the program.

A study published in Health Affairs Monday (July 1) found that an increasing number of working families are insuring their children through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the researchers behind the study called on policymakers to steer clear of additional hurdles for low- and moderate-income working families that could make it harder to sign children up for coverage.

Senate Finance Committee members are scheduled to meet next Tuesday (July 9) to discuss drug-pricing legislation that Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and ranking Democrat Ron Wyden (OR) have been negotiating, according to sources following the talks.