Medicaid

The Republican Governors Association urged the supercommittee on Monday to give states more control over their Medicaid programs, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour will be in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the RGA’s ideas for Medicaid.

Republican governors, like their Democratic counterparts, oppose President Obama’s plan to streamline federal Medicaid payments. But the RGA urged the supercommittee to look at a range of alternatives that would give states more flexibility over both enrollment and payments. Healthwatch has more on the RGA’s letter to the supercommittee.

Barbour, who chairs the RGA’s policy committee, will be at the National Press Club at 10 a.m. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, is moderating the discussion.

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Republican governors on Monday urged the congressional supercommittee to consider major changes to Medicaid, but not the cuts in federal spending that President Obama has proposed.

The Republican Governors Association said in a letter to the supercommittee that Obama’s proposal would simply shift costs to the states. Democratic governors also oppose Obama’s plan, for the same reason.

Obama has proposed combining various rates of federal Medicaid funding into a single percentage for each state. That would save the federal government about $100 billion, but governors say those savings would come at states’ expense.

“We are willing to do our share to save federal Medicaid dollars, but let us do it in a way that will reduce state taxpayer cost, too,” the RGA said in its letter to the supercommittee.

Republican governors want the supercommittee to give states more control over their Medicaid programs. The RGA has presented a list of options that would give states more power over their Medicaid rolls and how they pay doctors. It also supports repealing a provision of the healthcare reform law that prevents states from cutting Medicaid eligibility before 2014.

Inadequate controls to ensure Medicaid compliance could have cost state and federal taxpayers almost $260 million.

States are cutting hospital coverage under their Medicaid programs, Kaiser Health News reports.

Congress is open to cutting military health benefits, The Associated Press reports.

A new CDC report finds state health departments have made steady progress in implementing electronic systems to track and share data on the prevalence of diseases, MedPage Today reports. But states use varying tracking systems that might not work well together.

The foreclosure crisis could lead to health concerns nationwide, The Baltimore Sun reports.

What do President Obama's ACOs and former President Nixon's HMOs have in common? Kaiser Health News has the answer.

The House will vote next week on legislation that will prevent as many as 1 million middle-income Americans from becoming eligible for Medicaid under the healthcare reform law, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced Friday.

The Medicaid eligibility bill, sponsored by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), is the last bill on the leader's weekly schedule. It cuts the deficit by about $13 billion over 10 years and is expected to pass with bipartisan support.

The health law currently counts only the taxable portion of Social Security benefits when calculating Medicaid eligibility, allowing up to a million middle-income early retirees to potentially be eligible for a program meant to help low-income people. Black's bill would replace the healthcare law's Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) with the more restrictive eligibility standard for federal assistance programs.

Virtually all state prison inmates could be eligible for Medicaid coverage of hospital stays starting in 2014 under Democrats' healthcare reform law — at the expense of the federal government, Stateline reports.

The number of emergency room visits in the U.S. rose nearly 13 million in 2009 — about 10 percent — to more than 136 million visits, Kaiser Health News reports. The statistics are prompting calls for malpractice reform to reduce defensive medicine.

The Los Angeles Times delves into Republicans' strategy for repealing the healthcare reform law.

The New York Times writes about Massachusetts' efforts to rein in its healthcare costs.

UnitedHealth Group, the largest U.S. insurer by sales, reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates as money-conscious Americans put off getting medical treatment, Bloomberg reports.

Lawyers for California and the federal government argued that patients and doctors cannot sue over payment cuts to Medicaid.

It’s not the individual mandate, but the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this week in another big healthcare case.

The court will hear oral arguments Monday in Douglas v. Independent Living Center, a case that asks whether Medicaid patients and providers can sue over states’ cuts in Medicaid payment rates. Federal Medicaid law doesn’t expressly grant a right to sue, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2008 that patients and providers can sue to block cuts they believe would violate federal requirements.

The case has split Democrats in Washington: the Obama administration says states — in this case, California — should be able to make cuts without the threat of a legal challenge. But several powerful Democratic leaders in Congress have filed a brief supporting the right to sue, saying that Congress intended to keep the courts open as a way to ensure that states meet their legal obligation to keep providers in the Medicaid program.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court and legal experts are still sorting through the ins and outs of last week’s flurry of petitions asking for a hearing in the 26-state challenge to healthcare reform law’s individual mandate. Both the federal government and the mandate’s challengers — the states and the National Federation of Independent Business — asked the high court to take the case last week.

The healthcare case pits states against the federal government — and Democrats against Democrats.

States are creating a "loose confederacy" to push back against Medicaid cuts, reports Reuters.

Kaiser Health News has updated their chart of where the GOP candidates stand on healthcare issues.

Clinical trials are being put on hold because of the nation's drug shortage, reports Inside Health Policy (subscription required).

Georgetown's Center for Children and Families examines the impact of Arizona's CHIP enrollment freeze.

The Hartford Courant revisits Connecticut's decision to reject a 12.9 percent rate hike by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.