Live in a #GOP controlled area in the #South, and your life expectancy is worse. It has little to do with individual choices and everything to do with Southern Leaders, #racism that hurts whites just as much as black Americans, and an unwillingness to reduce child poverty or expand #Medicaid

"Centuries-old settlement patterns — and the attitudes they spawned about government — are to blame for differences in longevity between red southern states and bluer parts of the country."

1/n

Last month the Senate Finance Committee approved bipartisan legislation related to Pharmacy Benefit Managers which included two sound #Medicaid drug pricing provisions related to spread pricing and pharmacy acquisition costs. My new blog:
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/08/16/senate-finance-committee-pbm-legislation-includes-sound-medicaid-drug-pricing-provisions/

In a Georgetown CCF blog post, I focused on the marketplace enrollment data included in the recent data release from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on #Medicaid unwinding. Unfortunately, the data, while still very early, is not promising so far:
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/08/07/understanding-the-medicaid-unwinding-data-marketplace-enrollment/

“Scared out of my mind”: A Texas family scrambles after their disabled 3-year-old loses #Medicaid - The Texas Tribune
#Healthcare #AbbottsCruelty https://apple.news/A3WScNXLfScion7SDyRau3g

Good idea:

#Oregon wants Automatic #Voter Registration (AVR) for those on #Medicaid. Federal (CMS) reservations don't seem relevant ("... the prohibition exists to protect people from having their information used against them—police can’t turn to Medicaid for a person’s last known address, for instance, nor can prosecutors in states that punish abortion patients.") but similar proposals haven't always succeeded elsewhere.
https://boltsmag.org/automatic-voter-registration-medicaid-oregon-colorado/

h/t @taniel https://journa.host/@taniel/110789547379362295 #elections

ICYMI: last month I wrote a Georgetown CCF blog analyzing the latest budget plan from the House Republican Study Committee (RSC). As in the past, it would institute draconian cuts to #Medicaid. Together with a related proposal to block grant the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace subsidies, block granting Medicaid and instituting the other Medicaid cuts, as the RSC budget proposes to do, would cut federal spending by $3.84 trillion over 10 years. That constitutes a 52.3 percent cut, relative to the Congressional Budget Office’s May 2023 baseline 2024-2033 spending levels for Medicaid, CHIP and ACA marketplace subsidies.
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/06/26/house-republican-study-committee-budget-plan-again-includes-draconian-medicaid-cuts/

Public comments to a CMS proposed rule related to the #Medicaid Drug Rebate Program (MDRP) are due on July 25, 2023. Georgetown CCF has submitted highly supportive public comments to the proposed rule, focusing particularly on three sound provisions: (1) the proposed drug pricing survey for manufacturers of certain high-cost drugs; (2) the proposed contractual requirements related to pharmacy benefit managers and Medicaid managed care plans; (3) and the proposed clarification of how manufacturers must stack applicable discounts in determining “best price” under the MDRP.
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/06/14/ccf-comments-to-medicaid-drug-rebate-program-proposed-rule/

@davidshq

If your income and assets are low enough, you would qualify for your state's #Medicaid program, which includes basic dental.

However, note that it isn't so much charity as a *loan* against any assets you might have left in your estate when you die.

Still, the #USA provides some support to let us live longer, healthier lives.

Without major public assistance with an open heart (valve repair) surgery (and required dental care before it), I likely would have died a miserable death (perhaps accerated by overwork and exploitation) around age 48.

#Healthcare in #America

@thehill

I KNEW IT — STATES LIKE ARKANSAS! Thanks Gov Huckabee! I hope one day you or yours needs to have Medicaid in a state run by the likes of Cruella deVille!!
#Medicaid #MedicaidforAll

New numbers: More than 1 Million Medi-Cal members have been screened for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Learn more: https://www.acesaware.org/blog/may-2023-data-report-1113590-medi-cal-members-screened-for-adverse-childhood-experiences-aces/
#FactOfTheDay #Medicaid #Medi-cal #ACEs #Adversity #Trauma #MentalHealth #Health #PublicHealth #Healthcare #Wellbeing @medmastodon

New Georgetown CCF interactive data & maps on #Medicaid coverage in small towns/rural counties for 2020-2021. Shows the health coverage at serious risk in small towns/rural counties from work reporting requirements and poor state implementation of unwinding of the continuous coverage requirement:
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/05/22/medicaid-coverage-in-metro-and-small-town-rural-counties-2020-2021/

My Georgetown CCF colleague Leo Cuello explains how the McCarthy debt ceiling bill's #Medicaid work requirement would seriously harm people with disabilities including those receiving SSI benefits who rely on Medicaid for their health coverage:
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/05/01/mccarthy-bill-would-radically-change-disability-standards-for-medicaid-and-reduce-coverage-for-persons-with-disabilities/

My new Georgetown CCF blog post examining the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the #Medicaid work reporting requirements included in the McCarthy debt ceiling bill passed by the House on a party-line vote yesterday.
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/04/27/taking-a-closer-look-at-the-cbo-estimates-of-speaker-mccarthys-damaging-medicaid-work-reporting-requirement/

While all the focus today is on Speaker McCarthy's debt ceiling bill, which would impose a highly damaging work reporting requirement on #Medicaid beneficiaries, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is also discussing numerous health bills this morning in a legislative hearing. One of the bills, which is likely going to be overlooked, would codify for five years the flawed rule allowing drug manufacturers to report variable best prices under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program. My new blog analyzes the bill and explains why this would prevent the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from course correcting if problems arise that drive up federal and state Medicaid prescription drug costs, as is likely.
https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/04/25/house-bill-would-codify-flawed-medicaid-variable-best-price-reporting-rule/

Finally there appears to be some real alarm about debt default and how if House GOP leadership doesn't get their draconian spending cuts (including but far from limited to #Medicaid), they will go ahead and send the nation and the world into economic chaos.

My colleague Joan Alker and I walk through the damaging impact of the #Medicaid work reporting requirement provisions in the McCarthy debt ceiling bill: https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/04/20/assessing-the-damaging-impact-of-medicaid-work-reporting-requirements-in-mccarthy-bill/

Earlier this week Speaker McCarthy absurdly tried to blame #Medicaid for the ongoing labor shortage. My Georgetown CCF colleague Joan Alker and I debunk this claim: https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/04/17/speaker-mccarthy-blames-medicaid-for-the-labor-shortage-huh/

“I am afraid to have a serious illness,” Jana Beldelcy Valiente said in Spanish. “What if I have an emergency, and need medicine, but it costs too much?”

The latest expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, could do away with the need to balance fiscal and physical health. Early next year, the safety net opens full coverage to some 700,000 undocumented immigrants, ages 26 to 49, in California. Now, the question is how to convince all to enroll.

https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/medical-undocumented-immigrants-california/

#SanFrancisco #MissionSF #Health #Medicaid

@luckytran
Also, since you mentioned MEDICAID -
I heard today (NPR) that many people on Medicaid will unknowingly lose their healthcare coverage because of the Covid emergency declarations ending.

I don’t recall the exact details or dates, but some Covid emergencies will end I think at the end of April, and others the end of June.

Sorry I can’t remember the exact details. But for anyone who has #Medicaid I suggest you pay close attention, or do your homework.

I'll take my #GoodNews wherever I can find it. Hurray for #Medicaid in #Michigan, which has expanded its dental coverage to include crowns and root canals, among other things.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/2023/04/03/mdhhs-redesigns-expands-dental-benefits-for-adult-medicaid-beneficiaries/

h/t @civicDetroitDan