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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
