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Laws and Regulations

  • McCarthy Bill Would Radically Change Disability Standards for Medicaid and Reduce Coverage for Persons with Disabilities

    Hannah Green

    As my colleagues Joan Alker and Edwin Park recently discussed, Section 321 of Speaker McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill, passed on a party-line vote in the House on April 26, 2023, would impose mandatory work reporting requirements on Medicaid nationwide, burdening states and worsening the health of millions of people. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this…

  • Biden Administration Proposes Two New Rules to Significantly Improve Access to Care for Consumers Enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP

    Kelly Whitener

    Editor’s Note: Since this post was published, CCF submitted formal comments on both the Medicaid Access and Managed Care proposed rules.  If you thought you saw fireworks last night, it could be in celebration of the Biden Administration posting two(!) proposed rules yesterday tackling access to care in Medicaid and CHIP. It will take some…

  • We Just Checked and Medicaid Work Requirements are Still a Terrible Idea

    Hannah Green

    Our world is constantly in flux and that can be stressful. But you can rest assured that Medicaid work requirements are a consistently and unalterably terrible idea. The years may pass, but some things never change. Just a few short years ago, numerous experts weighed in on the expected harms associated with Medicaid work requirements.…

  • Medicaid Beneficiaries Ask the Supreme Court: Do We Have a Friend in You?

    Andy Schneider

    On November 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in what my colleague Leo Cuello has called “the most consequential case you’ve never heard of:” Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski.  The case began as a lawsuit against a county-owned nursing facility in Indiana by a now-deceased resident who alleged that…

  • The End of Medicaid Rights May Be Upon Us: You Need to Know About the Talevski Case

    CCFadmin

    The Supreme Court, the same court that trashed decades of settled precedent to overturn Roe and, in NFIB, for-the-first-time-ever ruled that a federal spending program (the Medicaid expansion) was “coercive” upon states, that court, is about to decide whether to completely wipe out the rights of Medicaid enrollees. Buckle up, friends. On November 8, the…

  • Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Supreme Court Drops Medicaid Work Requirements Case, But Still Does Damage

    Cathy Hope

    If you blinked at just the wrong moment last week, you might have missed that the Supreme Court erased several years of critical Medicaid law with just one 113-word order. Poof! On Monday, April 18th, the Supreme Court issued an order in the cases on appeal reviewing the legality of approvals of work requirements by…

  • Medicaid Wars: The Unwinding at the One Year Mark (Episode V)

    Andy Schneider

    In its first twelve months, the Biden administration has been unwinding the anti-Medicaid actions taken by its predecessor. The unwinding has been slow and methodical, and it is not yet finished. In part, this is because the new management at CMS has necessarily been focused on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and in part because…

  • Critical Bipartisan House Legislation Would Avert Looming Fiscal Cliff for Medicaid Programs in the Territories

    Edwin Park

    Editor’s Note: On July 21, 2021, the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, by voice vote, reported the bipartisan bill (H.R. 4406) to temporarily extend federal Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico and the other territories and avert the fiscal cliff. On Thursday, July 15, 2021, the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee…

  • Medicaid Wars: Rescind and Withdraw (Episode II)

    Andy Schneider

    The Biden Administration has a long list of bad Medicaid policies to unwind.  As chronicled in Episode I, the groundwork for the unwinding was laid in a Presidential Executive Order, “Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act,” issued on January 28. Among other things, the E.O. directs the Secretary of HHS to review section 1115 demonstrations and…

  • Health Policy and the First Amendment: Protecting public’s right to be heard in the state legislative process

    Adam Searing

    Georgetown University Collaboration Defends Rights, Facilitates Civic Engagement Recently here at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of my colleagues at the Georgetown University Law School in the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. Professor Mary McCord and Senior Counsel Annie Owens are respected attorneys…

  • Biden Administration Signs Health Care Executive Orders, Puts Welcome Mat Back Out

    Joan Alker

    Today January 28th  is Health Care theme day for the Biden Administration, which is in the midst of releasing a carefully orchestrated set of Executive Orders (EO) on a range of issues. Two Executive Orders were signed by the President today, the first to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, and the second to…

  • Senate Voting Rules and Budget Reconciliation Explained (Part 1)

    Kelly Whitener

    In the House of Representatives, legislation passes with a simple majority of 218 of 435 votes recorded on an electronic voting system. The Senate system is, by comparison, stuck in the dark ages. In the Senate, the clerk calls the names of each Senator and records the votes on a tally sheet. Like the House,…

  • Another Parting Gift for the Biden Administration –  the “SUNSET” Rule

    Andy Schneider

    The great American singer Wilson Pickett probably was not thinking of the SUNSET rule when he wrote his soul anthem, “In the Midnight Hour.”  But Secretary Azar waited ‘til the midnight hour, and there it is, in the January 19, 2021 Federal Register: “Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely,” a final rule issued by…

  • Trump Administration Tries Its Best to Knock Legs Out from Under Medicaid on the Way Out the Door

    Joan Alker

    So far 2021 has been a really wild and difficult ride for me and millions of others in the U.S. with COVID-19 ravaging the nation, an armed insurrection here in DC, and an ongoing economic crisis leaving so many families in need. My mind has been struggling to absorb all that is happening so quickly.…

  • The End-of-Year COVID Relief Package: Medicaid and CHIP Highlights

    Andy Schneider

    After more than the usual end-of-session drama, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) became law on December 27, 2020 (P.L. 116-260). The sprawling, 2,124-page opus includes not just badly needed COVID relief for millions of unemployed Americans but also funding for the entire federal government and protections against surprise medical bills for consumers with private…

  • A Parting Gift for the Incoming Administration: “Good Guidance Practices”

    Andy Schneider

    This week—two weeks before the inauguration of a new President—the self-proclaimed “Good Guidance Practices” regulation issued by the outgoing Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) takes effect. As proposed in August, the regulation was not so good for Medicaid and CHIP. In its final form, published on December 7, the regulation…

  • “Improper Payment” Rates for 2020: Another Year, Another Attempt to Tarnish the Popular Medicaid Program

    Andy Schneider

    $100 billion—with a “b”—is a large number. So when the headline on the op-ed in the New York Post screams “Medicaid hemorrhaging $100B on Americans ineligible for the program” most readers will understandably frown and think: “This doesn’t sound good, even in a pandemic. What’s going on here?” The author, Brian Blase, is not a…

  • What the Proposed “SUNSET” Regulation Means for Medicaid and CHIP

    Andy Schneider

    On November 4, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed  to require itself to review almost every regulation it has ever issued, including those affecting Medicaid and CHIP. It did so by proposing a new regulation, which has the misleading acronym “SUNSET” (Securing Updated and Necessary Statutory Evaluations Timely). A more appropriate acronym would…

  • Is there renewed hope for Medicaid expansion in Missouri?

    News Article

    St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Samantha Liss Health care advocates in Missouri are closely watching successful efforts to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot in other red states. Last year, voters in Maine approved expanding Medicaid through a ballot initiative, the first state to gain approval through a public vote. … “Interestingly, Medicaid has always polled…