Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Parsing Policies: Pros And Cons Of Medicaid Changes; The Toll Of Rising Medicare Out-Of-Pocket Costs
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is giving states the opportunity to conduct demonstration projects to integrate work and other 鈥渃ommunity engagement鈥 requirements as a condition of participation for certain enrollees. ... Pilot programs are a good way to test new policy ideas. Applying new ideas in a practical setting helps identify real world challenges and allows them to be evaluated for real world effectiveness. But pilot programs need not, indeed, must not supplant efforts by Congress to pursue more meaningful statutory changes in Medicaid. Nor do they in any way diminish the need to strengthen existing work requirements in cash assistance welfare programs. (Nina Owcharenko Schaefer, 1/28)
The guns are nearly silent now. The Obamacare debate ended mostly unresolved. The Affordable Care Act is still on the books, but it鈥檚 been beaten to within an inch of its life. The quiet that replaced all the thunder from the left and right in Washington comes from the unsettling recognition that nobody really won, but a lot of people lost. Congress somehow managed, after all the ado, to neither repeal it, replace it nor fix it. ... One dim light of hope comes from the growing number of 鈥渞ed鈥 states that are considering expanding their Medicaid programs. (1/29)
A new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found out-of-pocket health-care costs for Medicare beneficiaries are likely to take up half of their average Social Security income by 2030. As many seniors already know, Medicare does not cover an increasing number of expenses related to health care. Among these are supplemental insurance premiums, deductibles, long-term care and dental services. (Michelle Singletary, 1/26)
Last week, Aminatou Sow, the co-host of the popular millennial podcast 鈥淐all Your Girlfriend,鈥 tweeted out聽a story: Less than 24 hours before she was scheduled for surgery, a representative from the hospital called and demanded she pay her $4,000 deductible before the procedure could take place. When Sow protested, the hospital factotum agreed to a compromise if she paid half her deductible up front. (Helaine Olen, 1/29)
