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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Two years after a 33-year-old mentally disabled man died at a state institution in Queens, and one year after his sister filed a lawsuit accusing the staff of killing him, New York officials have sent her an $11.67 million bill. The claim against Rasheen Rose's estate cited his total Medicaid assistance from Aug. 6, 2002, through Aug. 6, 2012, the day he died. A spokeswoman for the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, which runs the center, said Wednesday officials were following federal Medicaid obligations in seeking reimbursement. "Not doing so would be a violation and...

Four years after its passage, Obamacare has now been largely implemented, and millions have had their coverage disrupted. For years, the administration has propagated a number of myths about Obamacare. Some have already crumbled, and others will fall as Obamacare continues to change the American health system.Myth No. 1: If you like your health plan, you can keep it. Despite President Obama’s promise that “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” about 6 million people have already been notified by insurance companies that their policies are being canceled. That number will grow. Currently, about 19 million people have...

Following the lead of Maryland, Oregon, and, most recently, Massachusetts, Nevada became the fourth state last week to drop its troubled health exchange website after facing serious technological issues and significantly missing the mark on enrollment predictions. Instead of the current enrollment system, Nevada’s Silver State Health Insurance Board unanimously voted to transition to the HealthCare.gov infrastructure for enrollment. This may not be a permanent transition, however, with the state planning to keep its options open for the future, possibly adopting enrollment software that was successful in other state-run exchanges.

From California to Rhode Island, states are confronting new concerns that their Medicaid costs will rise as a result of the federal health care law. That’s likely to revive the debate about how federal decisions can saddle states with unanticipated expenses. Before President Barack Obama’s law expanded Medicaid eligibility, millions of people who already were entitled to its safety-net coverage were not enrolled. Those same people are now signing up in unexpectedly high numbers, partly because of publicity about getting insured under the law. For states red or blue, the catch is that they must use more of their own...

Hospital systems around the country have started scaling back financial assistance for lower- and middle-income people without health insurance, hoping to push them into signing up for coverage through the new online marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. The trend is troubling to advocates for the uninsured, who say raising fees will inevitably cause some to skip care rather than buy insurance that they consider unaffordable. Though the number of hospitals tightening access to free or discounted care appears limited so far, many say they are considering doing so, and experts predict that stricter policies will become increasingly common....

HUNTSVILLE, TX, May 21, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Planned Parenthood affiliate in Texas bilked state and federal taxpayers for 10 years by performing unnecessary medical procedures on incarcerated teens, most of whom are minorities, according to a lawsuit filed by a whistleblower. “Planned Parenthood targets an incarcerated population of minority youth exclusively for unnecessary testing and fraudulent claim billing,” according to a lawsuit filed by Patricia Carroll, an Accounts Receivable Manager at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) from October 2007 until she resigned in October 2012.

A third lawsuit has emerged accusing Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast of committing Medicaid fraud. Former PPGC accounts receivable manager Patricia Carroll is alleging her former employer falsified Medicaid claim forms and double billed. Carroll joins former Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast employee Karen Reynolds, who won her case in 2013 and received a $1.25 million bounty from the $4.3 million settlement paid by PPGC to Obama’s Department of Justice, and former PPGC employee Abby Johnson, whose lawsuit accusing PPGC of $6 million in fraud is still pending. Carroll originally filed a sealed whistleblower lawsuit in 2012, but at some point the...

A half-century ago, a governor named Brown persuaded the California Legislature to embark on what those involved thought would be a modest new program of health care for poor Californians. Medi-Cal, as it was dubbed, was California's version of the national Medicaid program that had been attached to the new Medicare system of health care for the elderly. At the time, California's poor obtained medical care, if they did, from either charity or county-owned hospitals, and Medi-Cal was seen as a way of easing the burden on the counties' taxpayers. But as one of the participants in the Medi-Cal legislation,...

More than one-fifth of the popu-lation of the United States was receiving Medicaid benefits before the passage of The Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA expanded eligibility to adults under the age of 65 who have income up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. As originally written, the ACA relied on two provisions intended to entice and prod states to expand their Medicaid programs. So far, about half of the states have expanded their programs. The carrot enticing states to expand their programs is the generous federal participation. This year, the federal government will cover 100% of the...

WASHINGTON — Surgery patients covered by Medicaid arrive at the hospital in worse health, experience more complications, stay longer and cost more than patients with private insurance, a new study has found. The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, may offer a preview of what to expect as millions of uninsured people qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has joined a growing list of Republican governors using Obamacare as a way to expand Medicaid. Pence announced Thursday a blueprint of conservative reforms to extend health coverage to a larger share of low-income residents, some of which already have been adopted by other red states, Politico reports. Pence said his proposal was "the kind of health reform that puts working Hoosiers in the driver's seat," according to Politico. Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll The plan outlines a number of specific proposals including: placing enrollees...

NBER Report: Medicaid Expansion Reduces Incentives to Work Sean Riley | May 15, 2014 | Add a comment A working paper released this month from the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes that public insurance programs reduce incentives to work for low-income childless adults—precisely the population Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act targets. The paper comes on the heels of the widely-cited February 2014 Congressional Budget Office report estimating that the ACA, including Medicaid expansion, would cause a decline of 2.5 million full-time-equivalent employees by 2024. In that case, proponents of the ACA defended the findings by arguing it...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- It's been two months since Rodrigo Salido left the maximum security wing at Santa Rita jail, and two months without pills for his bipolar disorder. Now Salido, who served two years for burglary, assault and gang involvement, has no health insurance and few options for refilling his medication. California and 25 other states, under a provision of President Obama’s health law, opened up Medicaid to single and so-called “childless” adults. The change in eligibility criteria will extend Medicaid coverage to vast numbers of ex-offenders whose incomes are below the federal poverty line. Men and women involved in...

It looks as if Indiana may soon join the list of red states signing up for the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. Republican Gov. Mike Pence, after months of discussions with the Obama administration, offered a plan Thursday to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income uninsured Hoosiers. About two dozen states still haven't joined the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion, which extends coverage to low-income adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Some states like Texas and Louisiana appear entrenched in their opposition to major elements of the health care law. Other Republican states, however, are still...

And Another Republican Governor Embraces ObamaCare's Medicaid Expansion Yesterday we covered how Arkansas Republicans went along with ObamaCare, today another GOP Governor drinks the Kool-Aid. Et tu, Mike Pence? More than a year in the making, HIP 2.0, as his staff has nicknamed it, would replace traditional Medicaid for all non-disabled Hoosiers ages 19 to 64 with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. If accepted by the Obama administration, it would expand coverage to an additional 350,000 Hoosiers who now lack a viable health insurance option, the governor's staff estimates. ... If approved, the move could...

Nearly one-third of California’s total population -- roughly 11.5 million people -- will be enrolled in Medi-Cal next year.. Enrollment is expected to exceed previous estimates by 1.4 million, and administration officials said it would cost the state $1.2 billion more than originally thought.

The health care law has opened up an unusual opportunity for some mothers-to-be to save on medical bills for childbirth. Lower-income women who signed up for a private policy in the new insurance exchanges will have access to additional coverage from their state’s Medicaid program if they get pregnant. Some women could save hundreds of dollars on their share of hospital and doctor bills. Medicaid already pays for nearly half of U.S. births, but this would create a way for the safety-net program to supplement private insurance for many expectant mothers. Officials and advocates say the enhanced coverage will be...

A new report finds that Obamacare customers are in for sticker shock because, unlike many employer-sponsored insurance plans, the fine print in many Obamacare policies requires patients to meet their deductible before lower-cost prescription drug co-pays kick in. That means hefty out-of-pocket expenses for Obamacare plan holders, especially since Obamacare deductibles are "relatively high" as compared to employer-sponsored insurance plans. The report, which was conducted by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and Breakaway Policy, concludes that even Obamacare customers who receive taxpayer-funded subsidies will "find it difficult to afford the amounts they will have to pay out-of-pocket before their Exchange...

RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is considering expanding health coverage for the poor without the approval of the state legislature, a move that would muscle his top priority past Republican opponents but also throw his young administration into a partisan firestorm and uncertain legal territory. McAuliffe and his top advisers have consulted lawyers, health-care experts and legislators on how to bypass the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, according to three people familiar with the discussions. A fourth, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal private strategy, said the office of...

Spending on health care grew an astounding 9.9% in the Bureau of Economic Analysis' advance estimate of first-quarter GDP. It's the biggest percent change in health-care spending since 1980, when health-care spending jumped 10% in the third quarter. Analysts said it's primarily due to a consumption boost from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Adjusted for inflation, America is spending more on health care than ever before.Personal consumption grew by 3.0%, about half of which was due to the growth in health-care spending, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics. "If health-care spending had been unchanged, the headline GDP growth number would have...