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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A “secret shopper” accountability study shows that medical patients can’t readily schedule appointments by phone through Medicaid providers in New Mexico, even as the state and federal government spend $8.8 billion annually on the health care program that serves nearly half of state residents. When primary health care providers were reached by phone, more than one-quarter were either not accepting new patients or had left the listed medical practice. The study found that patients who were able to connect with Medicaid care providers confronted waiting lists or appointment times that exceeded contractual requirements. The consumer-protection...

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Wednesday said it would be “unAmerican” not to prioritize Medicaid expansion in the Democrats's social spending package amid an intra-party clash over health care priorities. Clyburn is a leading advocate of including in President Biden’s Build Back Better plan a provision for the federal government to step in and provide Medicaid coverage in the 12 GOP-led states that have so far declined the coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

If Congress follows the president’s lead and does not renew the Hyde Amendment, court precedents may require state Medicaid programs to cover abortions in most if not all cases.If Congress enacts them into law, the legislative concepts outlined in President Biden’s first budget will have far-reaching effects on American debt, deficits, and taxation. One specific policy may have an effect even as a proposal. By suggesting a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, the president gave conservative states another reason not to expand Medicaid. While coverage of the Biden budget has focused on its support of taxpayer funding for abortion, fewer...

Oklahoma voters narrowly approved a state question to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income residents. With all precincts reporting Tuesday, State Question 802, which asked voters to expand Medicaid, passed by 6,488 votes. The question will enshrine Medicaid expansion in Oklahoma’s constitution — effectively preventing Oklahoma’s GOP-controlled Legislature and Republican governor from limiting or undoing the expansion.

In his State of the Union address, President Trump renewed his pledge to ensure that all Americans benefit from the “most affordable, innovative, and high-quality health care system on Earth.” Under his leadership we’ve seen the end of the costly individual mandate; more-flexible insurance offerings at lower premiums; billions of dollars in savings on prescription drugs, with faster approval of generics; and our veterans empowered to choose doctors and hospitals beyond the VA system, so that they no longer need to wait to receive the care they deserve.Most recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has introduced the...

While Georgians may not yet know who will occupy the Governor’s Mansion in January, there is something Georgians know for sure: They want Medicaid expansion. A recent AJC poll found that 73 percent of Georgians, including 51 percent of Republicans, support expanding Medicaid. Georgians know that expanding Medicaid will allow those without insurance to finally get the coverage they need and deserve. This is true for all Georgians, but is especially true for women, particularly those that live outside of metro Atlanta. The state is currently failing its women. Georgia ranks 48th among the states for health insurance coverage for...

At least 21,000 needy people have died while waiting for Medicaid coverage, while 13 million able-bodied adults received Medicaid coverage in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, an explosive new study revealed Tuesday. At least 247,295 people are currently on waiting lists to enroll in Medicaid. The study, published by the Foundation for Government Accountability, revealed that when Obamacare enabled states to vastly expand Medicaid, it resulted in mismanagement, depriving the most needy and rewarding the able-bodied. "This really is a tragedy. Medicaid was designed as a safety net for the truly needy....

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama may not be running for anything these days, but his signature health care law was a big winner in Tuesday’s elections, as voters rebelled against Republican lawmakers who have blocked Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Democrats are hopeful their victories are a harbinger of further gains as they look to capitalize on the law's rising popularity in polls — and repeal legislation's deep unpopularity — with more ballot initiatives, legislative efforts and campaign messages. In Maine, voters passed a ballot initiative that would expand Medicaid to an estimated 70,000 residents by a margin of 18 points, 59-to-41, doing...

Former President Barack Obama is joining the demagogic slugfest against the GOP’s latest bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare. He claims the GOP bill would “ruin Medicaid.” He’s wrong. His health law ruined Medicaid. Now, half of all women who give birth in the United States are on Medicaid, a staggering figure. The Republican bill, awaiting Senate action, will reform Medicaid, restoring its original mission and ensuring its future. Medicaid was created in 1965 as a safety net for the poor. But ObamaCare distorted it, edging the US health-care system closer to a Medicaid-for-all or single-payer system. Swelling the Medicaid...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republican governors from seven states are calling for dramatic changes to Medicaid, which provides insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans, as they nervously watch President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders move to repeal and replace the Obama-era health law. At the same time, they’re telling Washington: Don’t scrap the Affordable Care Act without a viable alternative. According to a draft of the proposal obtained by The Associated Press, the governors are urging Congress to adopt an alternative that would change Medicaid from an open-ended federal entitlement to a program designed by each...

The most divisive issue for Senate Republicans when it comes to repealing and replacing ­ObamaCare is what to do with Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act gave states the option of accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor and disabled. Millions of people gained health insurance after 31 states -- including many with Republican governors -- decided to accept the deal. Repealing ­­ObamaCare would end the Medicaid expansion, cutting federal funds to all of those states. Some Republicans want to save the expansion at least through a transition period during which states would continue to get...

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control shows that the uninsured rate has hit a historic low, or at least it's the lowest it's been in the 20 years the CDC has been tracking it. This is being treated as trouble for Republicans who want to repeal ObamaCare, since it seems to indicate that the law is working as promised. But does it? According to the report, the overall uninsured rate was 8.8% in the first nine months of 2016. That's down from 9.1% the year before, and 16% in 2010, the year President Obama signed ObamaCare —...

A new study by Jonathan Gruber, one of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) chief economic architects, suggests that roughly two-thirds of new Medicaid enrollees in 2014 were eligible for the program under previous state eligibility criteria—meaning that they were not made eligible by the ACA. If accurate, then a much smaller share of new Medicaid enrollees were made eligible for the program by the ACA than Washington experts commonly believe. For example, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) most recent projection is that only one of six new Medicaid enrollees were eligible for the program before the ACA. Gruber’s results, combined...

The cost of expanding Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is rising faster than expected in many states, causing budget anxieties and political misgivings. Far more people than projected are signing up under the new, more relaxed eligibility requirements, and their health care costs are running higher than anticipated, in part because the new enrollees are apparently sicker than expected. Rising drug prices may also be a factor. As a result, at least three expansion states, Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio, have been pushing to require Medicaid recipients to pay more toward their health insurance - a step that...

The Maryland Health Connection is the state's Obamacare Marketplace. Monday, an agency press release noted that Maryland "has cut by 40 percent the number of Marylanders who were eligible for private insurance coverage when the state marketplace began three years ago." However, the breakdown of that statistic reveals that only 165,000 out of more than one million sign-ups are non-Medicaid enrollments. When the exchange opened three years ago, an estimated 405,000 people were eligible for private coverage. Three years later, that number has fallen to 240,000. But the press release notes that including Medicaid over one million have been enrolled...

Despite bitter resistance in Oklahoma for years to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, Republican leaders in this conservative state are now confronting something that alarms them even more: a huge $1.3 billion hole in the budget that threatens to do widespread damage to the state’s health care system. So, in what would be the grandest about-face among rightward leaning states, Oklahoma is now moving toward a plan to expand its Medicaid program to bring in billions of federal dollars from Obama’s new health care system. What’s more, GOP leaders are considering a tax hike to cover the state’s share...

For the past several years, Idaho lawmakers have rejected every attempt to bring Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to the Gem State. Earlier this year, they rejected two expansion plans that were so unpopular, they failed to even earn a committee vote. But with the legislative session winding down, there’s another last-minute, backdoor attempt to expand Medicaid on the horizon. The latest plan, dubbed the “Idaho Accountable Care Waiver Act,” would require the state to “provide for managed Medicaid services” to a new class of able-bodied adults. Although the legislation nominally limits its Medicaid expansion to able-bodied adults below the poverty line,...

Scott Killerud was about to throw away a mailing about the 2016 enrollment period for MNsure last November when something caught his eye. "Just as I was going to drop it in the trash, I was like - wait a second. What did I just read?" the Pine County farmer said.

Montana legislators were able to shut down Democratic Governor Steve Bullock's attempts to expand ObamaCare in Big Sky Country for two years. But in 2015, with the help of Ohio Governor John Kasich and some legislative trickery, Bullock and his pro-ObamaCare allies got their way. A small group of moderate Republicans joined with the Democrats to change the legislature's procedural rules and yanked the bill to the floor for a vote. The bill passed narrowly, making Montana the only state in 2015 to legislatively authorize ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion. (Alaska Governor Bill Walker unilaterally expanded Medicaid in 2015, despite a clear...

As he announces his presidential ambitions on Tuesday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich will be greeted with well-deserved criticism from conservatives over his expansion of Obamacare. To recap, in 2010 Kasich was elected as an opponent of Obamacare, but in 2013, under pressure from hospital lobbyists, he embraced the program's expansion of Medicaid, framing his cynical move in the language of Christianity, and attacking conservative opponents for being "heart-hearted." When the Republican legislature rightfully rejected the expansion, Kasich bypassed lawmakers and rammed it through a separate panel. Now that he's running for president, he'll try to portray himself as an opponent...