The Trump administration will not give Utah or other states federal funding to partially expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act; if a Medicare for all system operates the same way as traditional Medicare, the program would be “wastefully expensive,” authors warn; the creator of the widely used screening test to screen for early signs of cognitive decline is insisting on training for those who administer it.
The Trump administration will not give Utah or other states federal funding to partially expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, The Washington Post reported. CMS authorized the state to move forward on a so-called “partial expansion” earlier this year to a limited number of people. Utah had hoped to receive additional US funding even though it was not fully expanding Medicaid. According to the report, the White House claimed that it did not make sense to approve the more generous funding while arguing in court at the same time that the entire ACA should be overturned.
What would a Medicare for all system cover? Most people are focused on taxes and access, but in a New York Times column, Austin Frakt, PhD, and Elsa Pearson, MPH, noted that unlike in other countries, which often refuse to pay for therapies where the cost exceeds the benefits, traditional Medicare rarely denies claims. In a 2018 report to Congress, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission noted that up to one-third of beneficiaries received some kind of low-value treatment in 2014, costing the program billions of dollars. If Medicare for all operated the same way, the program would be “wastefully expensive,” they wrote.
The creator of the widely used screening test to screen for early signs of cognitive decline is insisting on training for those who administer it, Kaiser Health News reported. Starting September 1, most clinicians who administer the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) will be required to complete a 1-hour, $125 online course. Ziad Nasreddine, MD, said increasing concerns about the validity of test results, as well as possible liability for errors, spurred the changes. The test was used last year by President Donald Trump’s then-physician, who said the president scored a 30 out of 30.
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