Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to regulate out-of-control health care spending in California. The effort is being shaped by the very health industry players that would be regulated.
Patients are caught in the middle as insurers clamp down on paying for treatments or force prior authorizations for care.
This year, 23 states passed more than 70 pandemic-related provisions affecting nursing homes, including measures setting minimum staffing levels, expanding visitation protections and limiting owners’ profit margins.
The plan from high-wire negotiations would affect five key areas of health, but there will be further tense negotiations among Democratic lawmakers about specifics of the $3.5 trillion in funding. And all Senate Democrats will need to be behind the plan, because Republicans oppose it.
The approach, known as contingency management, has helped thousands of veterans kick the methedrine habit, but a federal government ruling has limited its use. California hopes to challenge that and make the treatment a Medi-Cal benefit.
The Biden administration is moving to undo many of the changes the Trump administration made to the enrollment process for the Affordable Care Act to encourage more people to sign up for health insurance. Meanwhile, Congress is opening investigations into the controversial approval by the Food and Drug Administration of an expensive drug that might (or might not) slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Joanne Kenen of Politico, Kimberly Leonard of Insider and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Also, Rovner interviews Marshall Allen of ProPublica about his new book, “Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win.”
Marilyn Bartlett, credited with saving Montana’s state employee health plan millions of dollars, is a busy consultant now, as states, counties and big businesses try to use her playbook to bring down hospital costs.
Control of the U.S. Senate this election hinges on a handful of vulnerable GOP incumbents. Their opposition to the Affordable Care Act could be their undoing.
The use of the word “always” makes this claim a stretch.
State legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom have hammered out an agreement on a budget that rejects Newsom’s proposed cuts to health care services for older and low-income people.