The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has issued a statement detailing its perspective on the recently proposed American Health Care Act, which would both repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
See that statement here.
The non-partisan legislative branch agency that advises Congress, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the states on a variety of Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program issues met last week in Washington, D.C.
Among the issues on the agenda of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission were:
Because Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals serve so many low-income Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries, MACPAC’s deliberations are often very important to them.
Go here, to the MACPAC web site, for links to documents on all of these subjects.
Pennsylvania’s plan to implement new contracts with HealthChoices physical health managed care plans on June 1 has been put on hold.
The reason: for the second time, companies that lost a public bidding process protested the state’s choices. The first time, the state threw out all the bids and started over again. This time the state says it needs more time to deal with the protests, negotiate new contracts, and get the new contractors up and running.
In addition to the delay, the new contracts will be phased in at different times in different parts of the state, with the first regional launch now scheduled for January of 2018 and the last a year later.
Learn more about why the new contracts have been delayed and how they will be implemented from this Philadelphia Inquirer article and this notice from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has published its February 2017 newsletter.
Included in this edition are stories about:
Find the latest edition of PA Health Law News here.
Pennsylvania appears to be no closer to awarding new contracts to serve its HealthChoices Medicaid physical health program than it was when it first launched the process of soliciting bids for such contracts in September of 2015.
When losing bidders protested the contracts awarded based on the state’s original request for proposals and took the state to court, the state threw out all the bids and cast aside its decision and started the process all over again, issuing a new request for proposals last year. When the state announced new awards in January the losing bidders again protested, this time alleging “irregularities” in the decision-making process. With the renewed threat of litigation, the planned implementation of the new contracts on June 1 now appears to be in jeopardy.
For a closer look at the issues, the alleged irregularities, and what is being done to resolve this matter once and for all, see this Philadelphia Inquirer article.
How can you keep score while Congress considers multiple proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act?
The Kaiser Family Foundation has just created a new tool that enables users to compare and contrast all of the current repeal and replace proposals: you pick the proposals you want to compare and you select the aspects of those proposals that interest you.
Find this new interactive tool here, on the web site of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
How might Pennsylvania be affected by a repeal of the Affordable Care Act?
In a new report, the Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative attempts to answer that question, offering projections on the impact of the 2010 health reform’s repeal on jobs, prescription drug coverage for seniors, insurance status for low-income Pennsylvanians, hospitals, and the state’s economy as a whole.
The study looks at this impact on a state-wide level as well as on a congressional district-by-district basis while also examining anticipated impact on some individual counties and even some individual hospitals.
Learn more about how repeal of the Affordable Care Act might affect Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanians by going here to see the Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative report The Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative Impact to Pennsylvania of Repealing the Affordable Care Act.
One of the tools many states are using to attempt to reduce their Medicaid costs and improve the quality of the care delivered to their Medicaid beneficiaries is value-based purchasing.
In a new issue brief, the National Association of Medicaid Directors takes a closer look at Medicaid value-based purchasing: what it is, how it works, why it is attractive to state Medicaid programs, what alternative payment models the states are employing as part of their value-based purchasing efforts, and what state Medicaid programs need from the federal government to continue such efforts.
Pennsylvania is in the process of introducing more value-based purchasing into its Medicaid program, doing so through new contracts currently being negotiated with the managed care organizations recently chosen to serve the state’s Medicaid population through the HealthChoices physical health program.
For a closer look at Medicaid value-based purchasing, go here to read the National Association of Medicaid Directors’ issue brief “Medicaid Value-based Purchasing: What Is It & Why Does It Matter?”
With policy-makers in Washington considering some changes, and possibly major changes, in the state/federal Medicaid partnership, the Health Affairs Blog has taken a look at some of the options those policy-makers might consider.
Among them are:
The article also considers the manner in which individuals enroll in Medicaid and how that has evolved over the years.
Because Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals care for so many low-income and Medicaid patients, they could be affected by any major federal Medicaid policy changes far more than the typical Pennsylvania hospital.
Learn more about some of the options Congress will have as it looks at possible Medicaid reform in the Health Affairs Blog article “The Future Of Medicaid: When Improving Upon The Wheel, Start With Something Round,” which can be found here.
In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf urged Congress, no matter how it addresses the Affordable Care Act, to preserve that law’s expansion of access to Medicaid-covered health care services.
The governor specifically pointed to the many people who receive substance abuse treatment through those services.
If the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is repealed and not replaced, over a million Pennsylvanians could lose access to health care and tens of thousands of people – people who are our friends, our neighbors, and our family members that are currently receiving treatment for a substance use disorder – would lose insurance coverage and no longer be able to afford their treatment.
See Governor Wolf’s complete letter to House Speaker Ryan here.