States who support the Affordable Care Act are seeking clarity after a judge ruled the health law invalid; Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, is expected to release a bill that would get the federal government into drug manufacturing; since Arkansas introduced work requirements into its Medicaid program, nearly 17,000 people have lost their coverage.
On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was invalid without the individual mandate, but states who support the health law are seeking clarity over the ruling. According to The New York Times, 16 states said there was ambiguity over whether the law was still in effect or if the judge’s ruling was supposed to have immediate effect. The states are asking the federal judge to protect the current healthcare coverage millions of Americans receive under the ACA.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, is expected to release a bill that would get the federal government into drug manufacturing. The bill takes aim at drug prices by creating a government-run manufacturer that would mass produce generic drugs, reported Politico. Warren’s bill would be the latest Democratic bill to target pharmaceutical companies and joins 3 other bills, including one from Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and 2 from Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon. It is unlikely that Warren’s bill would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate.Since Arkansas introduced work requirements into its Medicaid program, nearly 17,000 people have lost their coverage, according to the latest state data. The Hill reported that there are another 2000 Medicaid beneficiaries who are at risk of losing their coverage next month. People who lost coverage in 2018 can reapply on January 1, 2019. Medicaid recipients must work, go to school, volunteer, or be searching for jobs for at least 80 hours per month in order to keep their coverage. People who fail to report their 80 hours of work for 3 straight months will have coverage terminated.
Urticaria Diagnosis Challenged by Overlapping Pruritic Skin Conditions
April 23rd 2025Urticaria is complicated to diagnose by its symptomatic overlap with other skin conditions and the frequent misclassification in literature of distinct pathologies like vasculitic urticaria and bullous pemphigus.
Read More
New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
Listen
Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
Listen
ACOs’ Focus on Rooting Out Fraud Aligns With CMS Vision Under Oz
April 23rd 2025Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly playing the role of data sleuths as they identify and report trends of anomalous billing in hopes of salvaging their shared savings. This mission dovetails with that of CMS, which under the new administration plans to prioritize rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
Read More