MEDICAID

A growing number of states are offering dental care to low-income adults who once had to rely on charity or the emergency room to treat their tooth problems.

A federal appeals court is considering cases out of North Carolina and West Virginia that could have significant implications on whether individual states are required to cover health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance.

Hundreds of Native Americans have been recruited to addiction treatment centers in Phoenix from states as far away as Montana in a widespread billing scheme that mostly targeted Medicaid’s American Indian Health Program.

Public health advocates say Georgia appears to be doing little to promote its new Medicaid plan or enroll people in it.

Federal officials are raising concerns that long call center wait times may be contributing to a surge in the number of people losing Medicaid health care coverage.

In this week’s episode, we discuss the half-million people booted from Texas’ Medicaid rolls and the state’s deployment of razor wire and buoys along the border in Eagle Pass.

The Office of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has arrested three people associated with the genetic testing company ApolloMDx for their alleged involvement in a major healthcare fraud scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare approximately $142 million.

Paperwork problems and procedural issues are the driving force behind a surge of people losing Medicaid health care coverage in states.

When Texas started scrubbing people from Medicaid after a three-year pause on removals during the pandemic, one family lost the insurance coverage that helped provide all treatments for their medically complex child.

Republican Daniel Cameron says he would move quickly as Kentucky’s governor to revive a push to require some able-bodied adults to work in exchange for Medicaid health coverage.

Continuous Medicaid coverage ended in April. Many of the roughly half-million people stripped from the rolls don’t even know they’ve lost coverage yet.

The Biden administration is asking employers to give workers who lose Medicaid coverage more time to land health insurance through their jobs.

Advocates are calling for a halt to removals until the state can account for why more than 80% of the people who lost Medicaid coverage were eliminated for “procedural” reasons, like not responding to messages from the state.

Georgia is offering a new bargain to some adults without health insurance beginning Saturday: Go to work or school and the state will cover you.

Families of severely disabled children across the country are worried about the future of crucial Medicaid payments they started receiving to provide care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A federal judge has struck down Florida rules championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis restricting Medicaid coverage for transgender treatments.

A widespread Arizona Medicaid scam that has left an unknown number of Native Americans homeless on the streets of metro Phoenix is being declared a public health state of emergency by the Navajo Nation as fraudulent sober living homes lose their funding and turn former residents onto the streets.

About 1.5 million people have lost Medicaid coverage in more than two dozen states as a post-pandemic purge of the rolls gets underway.

Charges have been filed against an operator and two managers at a local dental clinic for their roles in a $6 million Medicaid fraud and kickback scheme, U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani announced.

Pregnant moms on Medicaid will get health care coverage for a year, patients will get more detailed billing and nurses will get help with school loans. But efforts failed to gain steam for legalizing fentanyl test strips, increasing the pool of mental health professionals who accept Medicaid and expanding Medicaid benefits to more Texans.

A committee of House and Senate members agreed to a plan to extend Medicaid coverage for a year after childbirth — with a controversial anti-abortion amendment attached. The bill now goes to both chambers for a final vote.

New moms will be able to keep their health insurance for a full year under a proposal the Senate passed Sunday. A last-minute anti-abortion amendment means the bill will go back to the House.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and advocates have thrown their support behind extending Medicaid coverage for a full year after childbirth. The full Senate will now have the opportunity to consider the bill, which has already passed the House.

Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee has signed a bill into law that would let state funds be used to pay for health insurance plans that cover state workers and Medicaid recipients seeking abortions.

The formal end of the national Public Health Emergency on Thursday is largely a symbolic and psychological step, representing the country’s formal emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

New mothers could get a full year of Medicaid health-care coverage under legislation given final approval in Missouri.

California lawmakers have agreed to loan $150 million to financially distressed hospitals.

More than half a million of the poorest Americans would be left without health insurance under legislation passed by House Republicans that would require people to work in exchange for health care coverage through Medicaid.

Some Medicaid recipients tell The Associated Press errors and confusion are leading to them being kicked off the federally and state-funded health coverage program.

Texas wants to expand mental health services, but many mental health providers do not accept Medicaid because of its lower payment rate.

New moms would be able to maintain their health insurance for up to a year after childbirth under the proposal, which also passed the House last session. The Senate previously reduced it to just six months of coverage.

President Joe Biden says his administration is expanding eligibility for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

California's Medicaid program will continue to pay Walgreens about $1.5 billion each year.

Texas is reviewing the eligibility of people on Medicaid health plans or Healthy Texas Women now that pandemic Medicaid coverage is ending. Here’s what that means, how to renew your health coverage or find other options if you no longer qualify.

The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature has given final approval to a Medicaid expansion agreement.

An agreement to expand Medicaid in North Carolina has reached the cusp of final legislative approval following a state House vote.

Medicaid will end for millions of Americans in the coming months, and that pushes many into unfamiliar territory: the health insurance marketplace.

After years of refusing to expand Medicaid benefits for new mothers, Republican officials in more than a half-dozen states are reversing course.

Pregnancy forced Destiny Williams to quit her job. She almost died during childbirth. Now with a newborn in tow, she’s struggling to build a more stable life for her and her children.

Texas largely conducts its state business in English and Spanish. It falls to interpreters like Terry Yun to help people scale the wall dividing them from crucial government services.

President Joe Biden says GOP lawmakers could put millions of people’s health care at risk.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is doing an abrupt about-face on an issue Democrats have been hammering him on this election year.

If you get health care coverage through Medicaid, you might be at risk of losing that coverage over the next year.

The Biden administration is planning to reverse longstanding policy and allow the use of Medicaid to treat jail and prison inmates' substance use disorders and certain other health conditions.

A five-year experiment aimed at improving care for some of California's most at-risk Medicaid patients reduced hospitalizations and saved taxpayers money.

Millions of Texans — mostly children, young adults and new moms — stayed on Medicaid for the duration of the pandemic. The state will soon start reevaluating eligibility.

Maryland officials are preparing for as many as 80,000 residents who could no longer qualify for Medicaid coverage this spring.

A newly released report from the Mississippi State Department of Health finds that an increasing number of mothers in the state have died in recent years due to pregnancy complications.

The federal government will allow Medicaid dollars to treat some people in prisons, jails or juvenile detention centers for the first time ever.

The government says a record 16.3 million people sought health insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year.

The federal government says it will begin a targeted crackdown on nursing homes’ abuse of antipsychotic drugs and misdiagnoses of schizophrenia in patients.

Millions of people who enrolled in Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic could start to lose their insurance plans by April 1 if Congress passes the $1.7 trillion spending package leaders unveiled Tuesday.

A dearth of nurses is leaving Texas seniors — especially in rural areas — without care.

The Supreme Court seems likely to reject a call to overturn decades of precedent and limit the ability of individuals to use federal civil rights law to sue.

More than two-thirds of Texans support Medicaid expansion. But on the eve of the midterm elections, the subject is still taboo for the state GOP. Why?

Former Vice President Mike Pence is supporting Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as he makes his closing argument Tuesday for a second term over Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams.

Texas ranks last among states in access to health care and has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country. Two longtime doctors in rural Henderson County created a homegrown safety net to fill the gap.

States around the country are making it easier for newborn moms to keep Medicaid in the year after childbirth, a crucial time when depression and other health problems can develop.

On this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Jolie about the problems within the Texas Juvenile Justice Department and with Eleanor about the state’s efforts to expand postnatal Medicaid.

HHSC said it was initially told the plan was “not approvable.” Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a statement Friday saying Texas’ plan to extend coverage to six months was not rejected but still under review.

A deal on Medicaid expansion in North Carolina is within reach after both legislative chambers passed competing measures before ending their annual session.

The Biden administration is warning pharmacies not to discriminate against women who may seek reproductive health prescriptions, including some that might be involved in ending a pregnancy.

California will be the first state to guarantee free health care for all low-income immigrants who are living in the country illegally.

The owner of seven Louisiana nursing homes whose residents suffered in squalid conditions after being evacuated to a warehouse for Hurricane Ida has been arrested.

A 47-year-old Katy resident has been indicted for defrauding Medicaid of more than $600,000, a federal official said Wednesday.

The federal emergency declaration is expected to last through at least mid-October and has kept states from dropping people from Medicaid rolls.

Debate over the waiver was key to the federal government’s push for Texas to expand Medicaid for more working poor.

A major report says American nursing home residents are subjected to ineffective care and poor staffing, and that facility finances are shrouded in secrecy and regulatory lapses go unenforced.

When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for U.S. health care.

Texas got a temporary reprieve on Medicaid funding from the federal government. But that won’t solve underlying problems with high numbers of uninsured Texans and the plight of hospitals in the state — especially those in rural areas.

The good news is that no rural hospitals in Texas have closed in the last two years. The bad news? They’re still in crisis mode, and the state government is still struggling to find a remedy.

The money reimburses hospitals for the services they provide to Medicaid patients in Texas.

Texas, unlike all but 11 other states, hasn’t expanded its Medicaid program. And it also hasn’t addressed the problem that’s supposed to help solve: The state’s worst-in-the-nation ranking for people without health insurance.

COVID-19 numbers are plummeting statewide, but on Texas’ southern border with Mexico, Laredo is still battling its fourth surge.

President Joe Biden says 14.5 million Americans got private health insurance for this year under the Obama-era health law, thanks to help from his administration.

Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to claw back Medicaid payments made during the three years that Planned Parenthood was fighting in court to remain as a qualified health care provider.

A government report says U.S. health care spending rocketed to $4.1 trillion last year as Congress opened the spigot of federal dollars to battle the coronavirus pandemic across multiple fronts.

At least 770,000 Texans are ineligible for both Medicaid and health insurance subsidies through the state-run marketplaces.

Medicaid issues are turning up as winners in President Joe Biden’s social budget framework even as divisions force Democrats to hit pause on far-reaching improvements to Medicare.

The political organization led by Democratic titan Stacey Abrams is branching out into paying off medical debts.

The Democrats’ social spending and climate change bill would put the United States back on a path to reducing its persistent pool of uninsured people.

Democrats are fretting about how they’d divide a shrinking pie amid signs that negotiations over President Joe Biden’s massive domestic policy bill could yield a smaller serving of health care spending.

House Democrats said Friday they planned to take action next week to suspend the cap on the government’s borrowing authority.

President Joe Biden says nearly 3 million consumers took advantage of a special six-month period to sign up for subsidized health insurance coverage made more affordable by his COVID-19 relief law.

The law, which takes effect Sept. 1, gives new mothers six months of postpartum Medicaid coverage instead of two. That’s less than many advocates and some lawmakers wanted.

California may become the first state to pay drug addicts to stay sober.

The agreement was set to expire next year after federal health officials rescinded the Trump administration's 10-year extension to the 1115 waiver agreement.

Connecticut has become the latest state to mandate that workers in nursing homes be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Illinois is leading a handful of Democratic-run states in extending health insurance coverage to adult immigrants living in the country illegally, including seniors.

Three Democratic U.S. senators from states that have refused to expand Medicaid want the federal government to set up a mirror plan to provide health insurance coverage to people in those states.

The bill would let counties and cities apply to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for funds that were declined by their states.

The bill would add an extra four months of health insurance for low-income women, who now get Medicaid coverage from pregnancy until two months after delivery. It now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott for signature.

Maternal health advocates said the bill — originally pitched as a one-year extension — could reduce the state’s maternal mortality rate and offer vital help to mothers grappling with conditions like postpartum depression or health complications in the months after giving birth.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its decision to rescind the Trump administration's extension of the so-called 1115 waiver.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit, filed Friday, argues that the Trump-era extension of the federal 1115 Medicaid funding waiver was lawful and that overturning it was a political move.

Her medical insurance at the time was provided by the Texas Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, which provides health care to adolescents whose families are low-income but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. CHIP provided coverage for her medicine, doctors appointments and other medical needs but unlike Medicaid, it typically does not cover the cost of birth control — something that Johnson needed to regulate her menstrual cycle.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has dropped plans to expand the state's Medicaid program after the Legislature declined to provide money for a measure approved by voters.

Sonia Wood, a certified pediatric nurse practitioner, treats a patient at Carousel Pediatrics in Austin. Three million children are currently on Medicaid, but most of their parents do not qualify. Credit: Spencer Selvidge for the Texas Tribune

The Texas House on Thursday rejected an attempt to direct the governor and state health officials to use billions in federal dollars to expand health care coverage for uninsured Texans, including working poor who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford their own health insurance.