State of the States: Grappling with Healthcare Changes
By Adam Alver, Policy Director The Big Beautiful Bill and State Healthcare The passage of H.R. 1 earlier this year, as we discussed in our most recent Word From Washington post, will have major impacts on the healthcare system across the United States. One of the most significant set of changes within the bill broadly […]
Word from Washington: The Federal Landscape
2025 has seen an incredibly active start to the year, with a new Presidential Administration, a refocused Congress under slim Republican control, and a firehose of new presidential actions (or executive orders – “EOs” for short). A New Administration (Again) On January 20th, Donald Trump once again took office as the President of the United […]
Advocacy News: August 2024
Word from Washington Federal Agencies Uninsured rate spikes as Medicaid “unwinding” disenrollments break 25 million According to the most recent data from the KFF Medicaid Unwinding Enrollment Tracker, more than 25 million Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled since states were allowed in April 2023 to resume eligibility verifications following the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). […]
Advocacy News: July 2024
Word from Washington Federal Agencies CMS prevails in lawsuit over partial Medicaid expansion in Georgia A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Georgia’s lawsuit over whether the agency can discontinue the state’s partial Medicaid expansion before its five-year approval expires. The Georgia Pathways to Coverage […]
Advocacy News: June 2024
Word from Washington Federal Courts Unanimous Supreme Court dismisses challenge to FDA approval for mifepristone In a case that threatened to restrict access to hormonal therapies for women with bleeding disorders, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed lower court decisions that effectively invalidated the 2000 approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the […]
Advocacy News: April 2024
Word from Washington After one year, Medicaid coverage losses during “unwinding” continue to surpass worst fears According to the latest KFF Medicaid Unwinding Enrollment Tracker, more than 21 millionAmericans have lost Medicaid coverage during the first year after states were allowed to resume eligibility verifications following the COVID-19 public health emergency. There remains wide variation […]
Advocacy News: March 2024
Word From Washington Federal Agencies Supreme Court Congress State of the States Oregon becomes first state in 2024 to pass protections against copay accumulator adjusters. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek (D) signed legislation unanimously passed by the House and Senate that protects consumers in state-regulated health plans from harmful and discriminatory copay accumulator adjuster programs (CAAPs). […]
State of the States: Winter 2023
Coverage losses during Medicaid “unwinding” continue to exceed worst fears More than 12.5 million Americans have lost Medicaid coverage nationwide during the “unwinding” of the COVID-era continuous coverage requirements, according to the most recent data released by KFF. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) allowed state Medicaid programs to resume eligibility determinations […]
State of the States: Fall 2023
North Carolina breaks budget impasse over Medicaid expansion Republican lawmakers in North Carolina finally agreed on a two-year budget bill in September, breaking the six-month impasse that prevented the state’s Medicaid expansion from going into effect as scheduled on July 1. Up to 600,000 residents are expected to gain Medicaid once the expansion officially starts, which […]
State of the States: Summer 2023
Three more states act to protect consumers from harmful copay accumulators Legislation ensuring health plan consumers have access to the lifeline that third-party copay assistance provides was signed this quarter by governors in Colorado (S.B. 195), New Mexico (S.B. 51), and Texas (H.B. 999), along with the mayor of the District of Columbia (B.141). The […]
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