Governor Janet Mills announced today that the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved Maine’s State Plan Amendments to expand Medicaid (MaineCare) under the Affordable Care Act. CMS notified the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) of the approval today.
CMS approved the state’s plan retroactive to July 2, 2018, which was the date indicated in the 2017 ballot initiative supported by nearly 60 percent of Maine voters. MaineCare expansion is projected to provide coverage to approximately 70,000 people throughout the state. With today’s approval, the federal government will finance more than $800 million in estimated costs for those who enroll under expansion from July 2, 2018 through state fiscal year 2021. Maine is among 36 states plus the District of Columbia that have expanded Medicaid.
Late last night, the E&C committee was burning the midnight oil (seriously...they were working on it past midnight) during the "markup langage" part of the process...and ended up voting to approve all 12 bills:
E&C CHAIRMAN PALLONE ON PASSAGE OF 12 BILLS TO LOWER HEALTH CARE AND PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS FOR CONSUMERS
Apr 4, 2019
Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) released the following statement today after 12 bills to lower health care and prescription drug costs for consumers were favorably reported to the full House of Representatives:
Last week, after Donald Trump dropped another massive turd in the punchbowl by telling his Justice Dept. to ask for the entire ACA to be ruled unconstitutional (as opposed to "only" the pre-existing condition protection provisions, as if that wasn't bad enough), Congressional Republicans were caught completely blindsided and at first, couldn't distance themselves from him fast enough:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told President Trump in a conversation Monday that the Senate will not be moving comprehensive health care legislation before the 2020 election, despite the president asking Senate Republicans to do that in a meeting last week.
McConnell said he made clear to the president that Senate Republicans will work on bills to keep down the cost of health care, but that they will not work on a comprehensive package to replace the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration is trying to strike down in court.
However, this report was released amidst a gusher of other major ACA/healthcare news stories over the course of the week, and I never really got around to a deep dive. I'm still swamped, but I figured I should at least go back and do a little more analysis today.
OK, first of all, I need to clean up the discrepancies between the OE6 enrollment data I had and what's in the official CMS report. Every year there are always slight variations in a few states, usually when it comes to the state-based exchanges, and this year is no exception. There were differences reported in six states; in five of them, CMS reported lower enrollment numbers; in one the CMS tally is higher:
Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high - Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance. The Republicans.....
Yes, I'm still fiddling around with the 3-Legged Stool metaphor. I wasn't gonna mess with it any further, but gvien that Donald Trump has decided that making healthcare the biggest topic of the 2020 election cycle (again) is a brilliant strategy for the Republican Party, I figured it was time for an update.
The version below includes a bunch of changes; some are corrections; others are enhancements:
Moved "Maximum Out-of-Pocket Costs" to the Blue Leg, since that's really a carrier covrerage requirement.
Added "Stay on Parents Plan until Age 26" to the Blue Leg. I never had it listed before, not sure why.
Added "Health Insurance Exchanges" to the Green Leg. I never had them actually listed on the graphic, but they're an important Government Responsibility, after all.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie today announced an agreement on the FY 2020 Budget. The Budget holds spending growth at 2%for the ninth consecutive year and cuts taxes for the middle class.
The Budget includes several landmark policies that will bring sweeping transformation and social justice reform to the state with the passage of the permanent 2% property tax cap that has already saved New Yorkers $25 billion since it was first implemented in 2012; a strategic MTA reform plan and steady revenue stream to fund the next capital plan through Central Business District Tolling; an additional $1 billion to support education, bringing total education funding to $27.9 billion; and landmark criminal justice reforms, including reforming the cash bail system, speedy trial, and the discovery process for a more fair and just New York for all.
I swear to God, Thanos must have invoked the Time Stone, because we’re right back to two years ago with this crap. I could just re-promote old blog entries from April 2017 and no one would know the difference:
White House working on secret healthcare plan with three conservative think tankshttps://t.co/I6Uutj1CVT
The White House is quietly working on a healthcare policy proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.
...The analyst said the administration has been “having conversations” on healthcare policy and has reached out to numerous think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the Mercatus Center, and the Hoover Institute.
There's over a half a dozen major healthcare reform bills swirling around the Democratic side of the aisle these days. The two biggest contenders at the moment are the universal, 100% mandatory single payer "Medicare for All" bill being pushed by the Progressive Caucus in the House (led by Pramila Jayapal) and, of course Bernie Sanders in the Senate; and the universal, 50% mandatory (over time) "Medicare for America" being championed by Reps. Rosa Delauro and Jan Schakowsky in the House and Presidential contender Beto O'Rourke.
Regular ACA Signups readers know that I'm a huge fan of the Medicare for America approach (although I think we also need a robust ACA 2.0 upgrade to tide things over until Med4Am can be ramped up). However, there are still a bunch of other proposals out there, and there's nothing wrong with any of them; it's mostly a question of how far you want to set your marker.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has been out of the national news for the past month or so, keeping a low profile since the media frenzy over the "med school blackface photo" debacle subsided. Rightly or wrongly, in the end, in spite of pretty much everyone under the sun demanding that he resign, he stuck it out and outlasted the scandal by simply...not.
He isn't up for reelection (and in fact under Virginia law he can't run again anyway), he didn't actually commit any crimes or anything else impeachable, so it sounds like the state has pretty much just sort of accepted that he's gonna stick it out for another couple of years. In fact, according to this article in the Virginian-Pilot, he seems to have regained some of his pre-scandal stature:
Two months after a blackface photo in an old yearbook nearly ended the political career of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, his life seems mostly back to normal.
