July 2025
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Webinar: Budget Reconciliation (HR1) Medicaid and Marketplace Provisions
In Partnership with Monday, July 28, 2025 the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy Center for Children and Families (CCF) and Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) held a joint webinar about the Medicaid and Marketplace provisions of the new budget reconciliation law (HR1). Experts at CCF and CHIR explained the provisions of the…
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Fraud and Abuse Against Medicaid: The Truth About the Budget Reconciliation Law
After the House passed its version of what was then known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” we examined Speaker Johnson’s assertion that the House had not cut Medicaid but had instead targeted waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. We reported that just seven of the 24 Medicaid provisions in the bill truly…
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Where Interests Conflict: Medicaid Managed Care Meets Work Reporting Requirements
Q2 ended on June 30, and the earnings calls have started. The first of the “Big Five” Medicaid managed care companies out of the gate was Elevance Health. The financial analysts on last week’s call had a number of questions relating to the Medicaid provisions of the Budget Reconciliation Law (BRL) P.L. 119-21, that create…
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New CHIP Protections are In Effect Now Despite Congressional Efforts to Eliminate Them
During the legislative process, most of the talk was about Medicaid cuts, but we highlighted that the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would not be spared if the budget reconciliation bill (HR 1) placed a moratorium on all provisions of the Eligibility and Enrollment Rule (E&E rule) finalized in April 2024. Thankfully, due to likely…
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States Pursuing Medicaid Work Requirement Waivers Must Make Changes: How the OBB Changed the Landscape for Medicaid Work Requirements
The new budget reconciliation law (aka OBBB — the One Big Beautiful Bill) makes the largest Medicaid cut in history ($990 billion over ten years). It will likely take health insurance away from about 10 million people, and another 5 million will likely lose coverage because of other Congressional Marketplace policies. It will wreak utter…
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Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act Marketplace Cuts and Other Health Provisions in the Budget Reconciliation Law, Explained
Editor’s Note: this brief was updated on August 13, 2025 to reflect additional Congressional Budget Office coverage estimates of the reconciliation law issued on August 11, 2025 In partnership with On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the Congressional Republican budget reconciliation bill into law (H.R. 1 or P.L. 119-21 which was previously entitled the…
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Medicaid Managed Care: Headwinds for the Big Five in the Budget Reconciliation Law
Early this week FitchRatings posted its take on the implications of the Budget Reconciliation Law (P.L. 119-21) for the “Big Five” insurers— Centene, CVSHealth/Aetna, Elevance Health, Molina Healthcare, and UnitedHealth Group—that together account for half of the Medicaid managed care market: U.S. health insurers managing coverage for state Medicaid programs will face revenue headwinds due…
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Budget Reconciliation Law Takes Aim at Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act
Just before our nation’s birthday, the House passed the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill and it headed to the President’s desk. Congressional leaders cheered and clapped as President Trump gleefully signed the law. But what’s to cheer about a law that promises to take health insurance through Medicaid and CHIP away from 11.8…
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New FAQs from CMS on School-Based Health Services
As a follow-up to requirements under the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that required the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to set up a technical assistance center and provide guidance to support the delivery of services to students covered by Medicaid and CHIP in school-based settings, CMS recently added 30 additional questions to…
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States’ Maternal Mental Health Efforts Show Improvement as Need for Support Grows, Especially in Rural Areas
The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health recently released state-by-state maternal mental health report cards that provide a snapshot of state progress addressing maternal mental health. Using measures across three domains—providers and programs, screening, and coverage—these report cards pinpoint areas of opportunity for states to improve maternal mental health. Overall, the report shows modest progress…
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Truth to Power: A Republican Senator Stands Up for Medicaid and His Constituents; Then Announces Retirement
With Vice President breaking the tie, the U.S. Senate just voted 50-50 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, the crown jewel of President Trump’s legislative agenda. With final text not even available to assess, and presumably not even read by the 50 Senators who voted for it, three Republican Senators voted no (Paul (KY), Collins (ME),…
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Supreme Court Reduces Rights to Women’s Health Care Because Congress Didn’t Use the Magic Words that Congress Didn’t Know About
Here we go again. Earlier this week, on June 26, 2025, the Supreme Court issued yet another dubious decision involving two of its favorite topics for judicial malpractice: women’s rights and access to the courts. In the case, known as Medina, the court ruled to allow South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood providers from the…
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Worth Repeating: Pregnant Women, Infants, Young Children are NOT Protected in Proposed Medicaid Cuts
Last month, the U.S. House passed the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act with an array of cuts to Medicaid and other critical supports for mothers, infants, and young children. Somehow, as Joan Alker described last week, the Senate version of the bill only made the prospects worse. Research shows that Medicaid coverage of pregnant mothers…
