The Courts

New Hampshire is failing to provide adequate home- and community-based services to Medicaid beneficiaries through the state’s Choices for Independence waiver, alleges a class-action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for New Hampshire on Monday (Jan. 11).

Pharmaceutical benefit managers sued the Trump administration Tuesday (Jan. 12) over a last-minute rule to end Medicare drug rebates that PBMs use to negotiate lower prices for insurers.

By granting a 14-day restraining order to delay the start of the most-favored-nation demonstration on Wednesday (Dec. 23), a federal judge signaled the drug industry will likely succeed in killing the demo.

Democratic states and consumer advocates are asking the Supreme Court not to take up a lower court ruling that paused the Trump administration’s controversial public charge policy that denies green cards for immigrants who could benefit from public programs including Medicaid, arguing in briefs filed Wednesday (Dec. 9) that the high court should sidestep the case because the incoming Biden administration is likely to overturn the public charge policy.

President-elect Joe Biden reportedly has selected California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead HHS, tasking the vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with leading the country’s pandemic response and recovery.

The Supreme Court on Friday (Dec. 4) announced it will hear a suit over Medicaid work requirements after Arkansas and the Department of Justice asked the high court to reverse a federal appeals court ruling that blocked the state’s program, and the DOJ also asked the court to take another look at New Hampshire’s program.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday (Nov. 10) rejected insurers’ request for a full court review of the August decision that found the government must reimburse insurers for Affordable Care Act subsides that were not paid in 2017 yet had limited the damages in later years to account for the “silver-loading” work-around that resulted in larger tax credits.

As the much-anticipated constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act gets its hearing in the highest court of the land Tuesday, stakeholders will closely listen to the justices’ line of questioning to glean any insights on the three questions in the case: Do the GOP states and individual Texans have standing? Is the individual mandate legal without the mandate penalty? If the mandate is unconstitutional, can it be cleanly severed from the rest of the law?

A federal judge has struck down the Trump administration’s controversial public charge rule, declaring it should immediately be vacated nationwide, the latest in the ongoing legal battle over the administration’s effort to deny certain legal immigrants government benefits including Medicaid.