Tag Archives: CHIP

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

House Plans CHIP Vote This Week but Final Action Not Likely Until December House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said lawmakers will vote this week on legislation to renew federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), even amid unresolved partisan disagreements over how to pay for it. Republicans and Democrats on the House … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

Democrats and Some Republicans Say Congress Must Restore Insurer Subsidies President Trump’s announcement Friday that he would stop cost-sharing payments to insurance companies triggered a firestorm on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers in both parties calling on Congress to restore the funding quickly. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said lawmakers could leverage upcoming must-pass budget … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

CHIP Renewal Triggers Partisan Clash Over Offsets Although the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enjoys broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, lawmakers last week sharply disagreed over how to pay for its renewal – signaling that a final vote could be delayed for months. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

Alexander, Murray Seek Health Law Stabilization Agreement With congressional Republicans’ efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on hold at least for now, the bipartisan leaders of the Senate HELP Committee are seeking to rekindle their work to shore up the health law’s troubled individual marketplace. Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he hoped … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

ACA Stabilization Effort Continues Amid Uncertain Senate Fate The chairman of a Senate healthcare committee outlined a key test for stabilizing the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) shaky individual marketplace: Both Republicans and Democrats will have to give a little. That formula has been wildly unsuccessful not only this year but also in recent years as … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

While Some Republicans Press For New ACA Repeal, Vote This Month Unlikely Some Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), are pushing new plans to overhaul the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but other policy priorities and tight legislative deadlines this month are likely to thwart attempts to rekindle ACA repeal efforts. Congress faces a … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

Editor’s Note – The next Capitol Hill Healthcare Update will be published after Labor Day when Congress reconvenes following its August recess. Republicans Contemplate Next Steps Amid ACA Flameout Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump face a series of key questions about how or whether to fortify the Affordable Care Act – particularly in the … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

Senate Readies for Key Procedural Vote on Healthcare Bill – Maybe Senate Republicans face a key procedural vote this week that would allow for debate of their healthcare legislation, but significant uncertainty remains about whether GOP senators can meet that procedural hurdle, what the underlying healthcare bill would be and how an impending White House … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

CBO Score of House Health Bill Set for This Week Congress’s official budget scorekeepers this week will release analysis of the House-approved bill repealing most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and that data will inform Senate Republicans on a path for passing their version of the legislation. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

Senate Panel OKs FDA User Fees Legislation reauthorizing FDA user fees for prescription and generic drugs, biosimilars, and medical devices won wide bipartisan approval last week in a Senate committee, teeing up approval by the full Senate, likely after the Memorial Day recess. The Senate HELP Committee approved the five-year renewal on a 21-2 vote. … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

House approval last week of legislation repealing and replacing most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) sets up a showdown in the Senate, where GOP leaders will confront a familiar web of political, policy and procedural obstacles that took House Republicans five months to navigate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and key committee chairmen must reconcile … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

AHCA Autopsy: What Happened, What’s Next? House Speaker Paul Ryan’s decision to cancel Friday’s vote on the American Health Care Act triggered post-mortem jockeying among vying GOP factions struggling to come to grips with how the party failed to repeal a law it has singularly campaigned against for the last seven years. Republicans’ inability to … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

GOP leaders delay ACA action amid “repeal,” “repair” debate House Speaker Paul Ryan last week set a deadline of the end of March for repealing most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as other Republican leaders and conservative rank-and-file lawmakers advocated competing policy alternatives for what would follow the health law. Congressional Republicans had hoped … Continue Reading

Capitol Hill Healthcare Update

A growing number of moderate and conservative Republicans in Congress are voicing concerns about the party’s strategy to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Act) in February but then wait months – and possibly even into 2018 – before developing a replacement plan. Republicans, including President-elect Trump, have said the party’s No. 1 priority is repealing … Continue Reading

Trump Administration: Impact on Healthcare Policy

Republicans’ biggest issue will be what to do with the 20 million Americans who have gained coverage under the ACA. Congress reconvened this week for the first time since Donald Trump’s stunning victory, and just as his election was a political earthquake, the impact of the Trump administration and the Republican Congress on healthcare policy promises … Continue Reading

Ambulance and Home Health Moratorium Continued and Expanded

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced an extension of its temporary moratorium on enrolling new nonemergency ambulance suppliers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas and new home health agencies in Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Texas for an additional six months. The agency also announced that the moratorium, which previously applied to specific metropolitan … Continue Reading

Five Things to Know About the Medicare SGR Fix

H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), was signed into law by President Obama on April 16, 2015. A broad bipartisan compromise measure, MACRA repeals the much-maligned sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula used to determine physician payment rates and replaces it with a new incentive payment system; extends funding for the Children’s … Continue Reading

Late Push to Reauthorize CHIP Funding This Session

Approximately eight million children currently covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) may lose access to their pediatric-specific benefits and provider networks if legislation is not passed to extend federal funding for CHIP beyond its slated expiration at the end of FY 2015. CHIP is designed to provide coverage to children and pregnant women … Continue Reading

Marketing to Medicaid Beneficiaries: Texas Proposed Rule Highlights Pitfalls for Providers

Earlier this month, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (Commission) released a proposed rule, 1 TAC § 354.1452 that prohibits certain marketing activity by Medicaid and CHIP providers. The proposed rule has been created to enforce the restrictions on provider marketing activities enacted in SB 8, 83rd Legislature, Regular Session, 2013. Subject to the … Continue Reading
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