- Oklahoma Medicaid approved for drug pricing experiment, By Ken Miller and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar (AP), July 13, 2018, ABC News: “The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has approved Oklahoma’s Medicaid program for a first-in-the-nation drug pricing experiment that supporters say could save taxpayer dollars and provide patients with the most effective medications for their ailments. Under the ‘value-based purchasing’ program approved in late June, the state and a pharmaceutical company would agree to a set payment if its medication works as advertised, but only a fraction of that if the drug is not as effective as promised…”
- Lawmakers await details on LePage’s plan for hospital tax to fund Medicaid expansion, By Kevin Miller, July 18, 2018, Portland Press Herald: “Maine’s highest court will hear arguments Wednesday over the LePage administration’s refusal to begin offering Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands of additional adults. Meanwhile, lawmakers and a representative for Maine’s hospitals say they have yet to see a formal plan from Gov. Paul LePage’s office detailing his 3-week-old proposal he made last month to pay for Medicaid expansion by increasing taxes on hospitals…”
- Ohio Medicaid’s mental, addiction benefits achieve equality with physical care: state report, By Laura Hancock, July 18, 2018, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Once Ohio Medicaid patients with mental health or addiction problems enter the health care system, they must be treated on par as those with physical ailments. That means no extra co-pays, prior authorizations or limits on hospitalization or counseling that wouldn’t be imposed on physical health care in Medicaid. The barriers that many patients in the mental health system know too well are supposed to have been recently eliminated. According to a recent report, the Ohio Department of Medicaid is now complying with a federal law that requires equality – technically called ‘parity’ in the health care world – between benefits for mental and physical health care…”
Day: July 18, 2018
Safety Net Programs and Work Requirements
- The Trump administration has a new argument for dismantling the social safety net: It worked., By Jeff Stein and Tracy Jan, July 14, 2018, Washington Post: “Republicans for years have proclaimed the federal government’s decades-old War on Poverty a failure. ‘Americans are no better off today than they were before the War on Poverty began in 1964,’ House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) wrote in his 2016 plan to dramatically scale back the federal safety net. Now the Trump administration is pitching a new message on anti-poverty programs, saying efforts that Republicans had long condemned as ineffective have already worked. The White House in a report this week declared the War on Poverty ‘largely over and a success,’ arguing that few Americans are truly poor — only about 3 percent of the population — and that the booming economy is the best path upward for those who remain in poverty…”
- 7,000 people fail to meet Arkansas Medicaid work requirement, By Andrew DeMillo, July 13, 2018, Associated Press: “More than 7,000 people on Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion didn’t meet a requirement that they report at least 80 hours of work in June and face the threat of losing their coverage if they fail to comply sometime before the end of this year, state officials said Friday…”
Rural Hospitals and Obstetric Care
It’s 4 A.M. The baby’s coming. But the hospital is 100 miles away., By Jack Healy, July 17, 2018, New York Times: “A few hours after the only hospital in town shut its doors forever, Kela Abernathy bolted awake at 4:30 a.m., screaming in pain. Oh God, she remembered thinking, it’s the twins. They were not due for another two months. But the contractions seizing Ms. Abernathy’s lower back early that June morning told her that her son and daughter were coming. Now. Ms. Abernathy, 21, staggered out of bed and yelled for her mother, Lynn, who had been lying awake on the living-room couch. They grabbed a few bags, scooped up Ms. Abernathy’s 2-year-old son and were soon hurtling across this poor patch of southeast Missouri in their Pontiac Bonneville, racing for help. The old hospital used to be around the corner. Now, her new doctor and hospital were nearly 100 miles away…”