Last month I noted that North Carolina's ACA Medicaid expansion initiative, which started in December 2023, had officially enrolled more than 400,000 of the estimated 600,000 NC residents eligible for the program.
The data comes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quarterly Medicaid Budget & Expenditure System reports. Unfortunately, the MBES reports only ran through June of last year, so it was missing the last half of the year...which is pretty important since that's when the drop in Medicaid coverage due to the ongoing Unwinding process really started to kick in.
Fortunately, CMS recently updated the MBES data to include the third quarter of 2023, bringing Medicaid enrollment *up through September. It's still 8 months out of date but it's better than nothing.
Note: Medicaid expansion enrollment actually peaked in May 2023 at just shy of 24.8 million, but the graph below only includes 6-month increments (January/June).
As of September 2023, MBES put Medicaid expansion enrollment at 23,225,220 nationally.
No further analysis or comment here; I just think this is a pretty cool graphic...and keep in mind that most of the people represented here would have been utterly screwed from early 2020 - early 2023 without the Affordable Care Act being in place when the pandemic hit.
Click the image for a higher-resolution version; the states are listed on the right-hand side, though they might be difficult to make out (also note that Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands also have a number of ACA expansion enrollees shown):
As I've written about several times before, starting April 1st, New York State expanded their wildly popular Essential Plan program (NY's name for the ACA's Basic Health Plan program) up the household income scale from 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) to 250% FPL:
On March 1, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Treasury approved New York's Section 1332 State Innovation Waiver application to expand the Essential Plan. Section 1332 State Innovation Waivers allow states to pursue innovative strategies for providing residents with access to high quality, affordable health insurance. The waiver was approved for five years, from 2024 through 2028.
...Key Components of the Waiver
This approved State Innovation waiver expands health insurance and covers health-related social needs, improving health care and advancing health equity. The waiver includes the following key components:
TRENTON — New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Acting Commissioner Justin Zimmerman today announced the department will continue and extend a previously announced Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to make it easier for qualified individuals who are no longer eligible for NJ FamilyCare coverage to enroll with Get Covered New Jersey.
As required by federal law, the Department of Human Services restarted eligibility reviews for NJ FamilyCare on April 1, 2023. Those who no longer qualify for NJ FamilyCare because their income is too high may be eligible to obtain health coverage through Get Covered New Jersey and may be able to get help paying for premiums.
The end date of this SEP will be extended from July 31, 2024, to November 30, 2024, which will help more individuals leaving NJ FamilyCare to find quality, affordable health insurance through the start of the next Open Enrollment Period. Any eligible consumer who attests to losing NJ FamilyCare (Medicaid/CHIP) coverage between that same time period will be eligible for the SEP.
Nursing home minimum staffing standards promote resident care and safety
Medicaid and CHIP to have historic access standards, advance fair compensation for direct care workers
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), today issued three final rules to fulfill President Biden’s commitment to support family caregivers, boost compensation and job quality for care workers, expand and improve care options, and improve the safety and quality of care in federally-funded nursing homes. The actions, announced during Care Workers Recognition Month and the Month of Action on Care, represent a transformational investment to support America’s families and workers.
In response, a couple of weeks later the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a statement about the actions they're taking to resolve the issue.
Regular readers may have noticed that while I've written plenty about non-ACA compliant Short-Term, Limited Duration (STLD) healthcare policies (the "Short" part of my #ShortAssPlans hashtag), I've written far less about the "Ass" part...namely, Association Health Plans (AHPs)
The main reason for this is that I simply don't understand AHPs as well and don't want to misinform people about them. The other reason is that they sort of have one foot each in the worlds of the Individual and Small Group markets, and I write mostly about the Individual market.
But these health plans, created for small businesses, have a darker side: They have a long history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills.
The problems are described in dozens of court cases and enforcement actions taken over more than a decade by federal and state officials who regulate the type of plans Mr. Trump is encouraging, known as association health plans.
HHS Releases New Data Showing Over 10 Million People with Medicare Received a Free Vaccine Because of the President’s Inflation Reduction Act; Releases Draft Guidance for the Second Cycle of Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program
Over 10 million people with Part D Medicare received a free vaccine in 2023 thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, up from just 3 million in 2021.
President Biden’s lower cost prescription drug law, the Inflation Reduction Act, is helping millions of seniors and families save money on health care costs and prescription drugs. The law took on Big Pharma to finally allow Medicare to directly negotiate with participating drug companies for the prices of covered prescription drugs, caps the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors, and makes recommended vaccines free for Medicare Part D enrollees. Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) published a new report showing that in 2023 more than 10 million people with Medicare Part D received a free vaccine thanks to the law – an increase from just 3.4 million people receiving covered vaccines in 2021.
