Medicaid

Cantor: Democrats back off Medicaid cuts [subscription required].

Experts: GOP state leaders fumbled by ceding exchange control.

Healthcare overhaul could reduce options for illegal immigrants.

Jindal said a meeting is "more important than ever" after the administration announced that states cannot partially expand Medicaid.

Liberals are intensely — and successfully — pressing the White House to take Medicaid off the table in deficit-reduction negotiations.

The Obama administration backed away Monday from roughly $100 billion in Medicaid savings it had proposed during deficit-reduction talks earlier this year.

The move comes as liberals have pressed the White House to take Medicaid off the table in negotiations surrounding the "fiscal cliff" — and it will make any agreement on entitlement spending about $100 billion harder to reach.

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said the Obama administration no longer supports a plan to combine the various calculations used to determine the federal government's share of Medicaid spending. 

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GOP governors seek leeway on Medicaid expansion.

Trade-offs in raising Medicare eligibility age.

Gun violence rises, but fewer die.

A coalition of public hospitals has launched a new campaign against cuts to Medicaid that could come as part of a deficit-reduction deal.

At ProtectMedicaid.org, the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) argues the low-income health insurance program is essential for a healthy economy.

"Medicaid ensures access to quality healthcare for more than 60 million people … all at a lower per-beneficiary cots than private insurance and Medicare," NAPH writes. 

Hispanics — one of Democrats' key voting blocs — will be the biggest beneficiaries if President Obama's healthcare law is fully implemented, the law's supporters said Wednesday.

Jennifer Ng’andu, director of the Health and Civil Rights Policy Project at the National Council of La Raza, said Hispanics would see the biggest gains in healthcare coverage if the law is fully implemented, meaning every state opts in to the optional Medicaid expansion.

Several Republican governors have said they won't implement the Medicaid expansion, which would cover roughly 15 million people if every state took part. They have also vowed not set up their own insurance exchanges, but the administration has the authority to take over that task in reluctant states.

Implementing the Medicaid expansion in President Obama's healthcare law wouldn't cost the states much money, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Republican governors are under enormous pressure not to expand their Medicaid programs, as conservatives look for any way to undermine the Affordable Care Act now that it has survived the Supreme Court as well as the 2012 election.

Nearly every Republican governor has rejected the expansion, citing the additional costs to state governments that are still recovering from the recession. But according to the new Kaiser analysis, states' additional costs would be small.

Obama has backed some Medicare and Medicaid changes in previous talks, but his allies will likely oppose such proposals now.

Experts at the Center for American Progress said Medicaid cuts would undermine the success of the president's signature healthcare law.