Free Republic

The Treasury Department reported a $208 billion deficit for the month of May — which is $61 billion higher than May 2018. To put that in perspective, the deficit for the entire year of 2007 was $161 billion. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, red ink has already reached $738 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, the total annual federal deficit has exceeded that only six times in the nation’s history (five of them under President Obama). Not surprisingly, the Republican tax cuts are taking the blame for this year’s extraordinary deficits. But wait a minute. Overall...

Georgia’s Medicaid and PeachCare programs covered 20,000 fewer children at the end of 2018 than the year before, a new report says. That 1.6 percent drop is less than an overall 2.2 percent decline in enrollment nationally, according to the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The report, released Thursday, said that nationally, about 828,000 fewer children were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which in Georgia is called PeachCare for Kids. Not every child cited in the statistics is now necessarily without coverage. With unemployment low, many less affluent people have been able to...

At Community First Medical Center on the Northwest Side the other day, an intercom repeated, "Code diversion, cath lab." Dr. David Fishman, a cardiologist, paused and said, "That's a bad sign." The hospital's cardiac imaging equipment was down again, meaning ambulances with heart patients would have to divert to another hospital. At best, that would be nearly 5 miles away. The outage didn't last long—just long enough to illuminate the challenges of Medicaid-dependent hospitals such as Community First, where less than 1 in 10 inpatients have private insurance and ambulance volume is the city's fifth-highest. It echoes the situation in...

Labor organizations will no longer be allowed to skim dues money from the checks of Medicaid patients under new rules adopted by the Trump administration. The Department of Health and Human Services's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted new regulation that will prohibit states from siphoning money from caregiver reimbursements to third parties. The rule takes direct aim at state policies enacted to enrich union coffers. "State Medicaid programs are responsible for ensuring that taxpayer dollars are dedicated to providing healthcare services for low-income, vulnerable Americans and are not diverted in ways that do not comply with federal law,"...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to count self-identified illegal immigrants in the 2020 census. Cities worry adding the citizenship question could undercount 6.5 million people. Their argument, however, isn't just about political power but billions of dollars in federal funds states expect. The case underscores what experts say is a growing cost to taxpayers from the surge of Central American families and unaccompanied minors. "We're talking about billions of dollars in taxpayer benefits over the next few years," said Dan Stein, director of the right-leaning think tank, Federation for American Immigration Reform. "The payout for the taxpayer...

Illinois’ Medicaid program will soon cover gender reassignment surgery. The state proposed new coverage rules Friday. Their proposed changes would have Medicaid cover genital and breast-related surgeries for people that are at least 21-years-old and that have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. “Surgeries that may have been prohibitive for them before are now going to be covered by Medicaid, so it gives transgender individuals an opportunity to opt for those surgeries if that’s something they want to do,” Phoenix Center Executive Director Jonna Cooley said. Cooley said not all transgender people want to get gender affirmation surgery and said the...

Last week, Americans United for Life filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of a group of 77 Members of Congress in the en banc Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, supporting Texas's decision to defund Planned Parenthood under its State Medicaid program. The case, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas v. Phillips, arose after Texas disqualified Planned Parenthood as a State Medicaid Provider when undercover videos revealed that Planned Parenthood was involved in illegal and unethical behavior concerning aborted fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood and some of its patients sued in federal court challenging the disqualification. A three-judge Fifth...

A new book on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offers new details of his negotiation with liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to save ObamaCare ahead of the court's landmark ruling in 2012, according to excerpts released on CNN. In Joan Biskupic's "The Chief" which is scheduled to release next Thursday, she writes that Roberts originally opposed upholding the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that required people to buy insurance, and cast his initial vote to strike it down, but he did join the liberal justices in voting to uphold Medicaid expansion, according to the book. He later...

Iowa taxpayers will be forced to fund gender reassignment surgery through Medicaid after the state Supreme Court ruled that such procedures are “medically necessary” for transgender individuals. On Friday, Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that transgender people can now use Medicaid for “gender-affirming surgeries,” overturning the state’s previously held administrative code regarding Medicaid, which classifies transition-related surgeries as "cosmetic, reconstructive or plastic surgery" and explicitly bans "surgeries for the purpose of sex reassignment,” the Des Moines Register reports. The justices agreed with a district judge's ruling that the rules contradicted protections in the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which added gender identity...

The number of children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP — two government health plans for the poor — fell by nearly 600,000 in the first 11 months of 2018, a precipitous drop that has puzzled and alarmed many health policy analysts, while several states say it reflects the good news of an improving economy. Enrollment in the two programs decreased by 599,000 children in the 48 states from which the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, has data from December 2017 to November 2018, the last month for which numbers are...

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state's Medicaid program must cover sex reassignment surgery for transgender people. The court ruled Friday that the Iowa Department of Human Services discriminated against two women by denying their Medicaid claims for transition-related care. “The ruling means that many transgender Iowans will be able to obtain life-saving medical care that they were unable to get in the past," said John Knight with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the women. The state argued that transition-related surgeries were not covered by Medicaid because they were "cosmetic, reconstructive or plastic surgery." It specifically banned...

More than 100 House Democrats -- nearly half of the new majority -- have signed on to a new single-payer healthcare bill that supporters describe as "battle ready." If by "battle ready," they mean, "extremely controversial, deeply politically risky, and totally bereft of any acknowledgement of the proposal's eye-poppingly exorbitant costs," they're undoubtedly correct. Politico's story on the legislation is full of extraordinary tidbits and quotes. Here are some of the most important facts we've learned: (1) The bill "doesn’t include a price tag or specific proposals for financing the new system, which analysts estimate would cost tens of trillions...

Top congressional Democrats requested Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services halt Medicaid work requirements, citing widespread loss of coverage in Arkansas. The letter, signed by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey rebukes the administration for "disregard of Congressional intent" and a failure to track the impact of waiver policies. Using Medicaid 1115 waivers, states can receive federal funds for Medicaid expansion despite modifying the policy outlined in the Affordable Care Act. The waivers, however, must be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services. Arkansas was the first state to...

A ruling issued tonight by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has torpedoed several of the abortion-rights movement’s key talking points in defense of Planned Parenthood. The case dealt with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s decision to terminate the state’s Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood affiliates across the state. The state based its decision to remove Planned Parenthood from the list of eligible Medicaid providers in large part on a series of undercover videos released in the summer of 2015 showing footage of Planned Parenthood executives and doctors admitting to illegally profiting from the sale of the...

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that allows Texas to strip Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid funding.... to have Planned Parenthood removed as a qualified Medicaid provider following the release of several damning undercover videos, should come as a major blow to not just the abortion provider, but also the press. Four years later, we learn from the 5th Circuit that the videos were neither selectively edited, nor was it false to say that Planned Parenthood associates circumvented legal, medical, and ethical guidelines in pursuit of salvaging human remains. The ruling shatters the claim that the...

Medicaid health plans are starting to pay for non-traditional services such as meals, transportation, housing and other forms of assistance to improve members’ health and reduce medical costs. That change follows efforts by state Medicaid programs to give health plans financial incentives to control spending, said Jill Rosenthal, senior program director for the National Academy for State Health Policy. Rather than continue to pay a set fee each month to cover members’ health costs, many states are implementing policies that let health plans share in any savings they can demonstrate. That provides motivation for insurers to address factors such as...

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to consider cases involving states' ability to decide whether certain health providers are eligible for Medicaid reimbursements. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch rebuked their colleagues for refusing to take up the issue due to a tenuous connection with Planned Parenthood. "Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify abdicating our judicial duty," Thomas wrote in a scathing dissent joined by Alito and Gorsuch. "If anything, neutrally applying the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background." The Supreme Court refused to consider...

FULL TITLE: Justice Thomas Blasts Supreme Court for Sidestepping Planned Parenthood: “Quit Abdicating Our Judicial Duty” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas criticized his fellow justices Monday for refusing to do their job when they rejected a case about state efforts to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. On Monday, six of the nine justices refused to take two cases out of Kansas and Louisiana where lower courts refused to allow the states to defund the nation’s biggest abortion business. Both states, and several others, moved to revoke taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood after videos exposed the abortion giant allegedly...

Its fundamental principle is giving insurers negotiating power. Imagine if Aunt Sue's insurer had to buy exactly A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I and J. The price on each would be high and the total price via premiums would be impoverishing for Aunt Sue. Imagine instead if Aunt Sue's insurer only had to buy at least eight of the ten for Aunt Sue to get a federal tax credit. Each seller would realize that their yearly revenue from Aunt Sue might be zero. Deals would be offered and good deals made. Aunt Sue would probably wind up with all ten and at a much lower...

The dispute did not involve abortion, but rather a legal battle over whether states could block Medicaid patients' access to other health services. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left lower court victories intact for Planned Parenthood in a legal battle with states over access by Medicaid patients to the group's services. The dispute did not involve abortion, but the action by the justices keeps a hot-button political issue off the docket. Three of the court's conservatives said the court should have taken the case. After an anti-abortion group released videos in 2015 that purported to show officials...