Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Medicare Advantage Musical Chairs Continues
Even as the number of seniors enrolling in Medicare Advantage plans rises every year, the program’s stability is threatened by the withdrawal of those plans from the program. According to a new JAMA Network analysis, after years of just one percent of Medicare Advantage participants being forced to find new plans because their plan left the program, the rate of participants who need to find new plans for that reason rose to 6.5 percent in 2025 and to ten percent in 2026. This is occurring, moreover, even though the number [...]
Rate of Timely Prenatal Care Declines
The rate at which pregnant women start receiving prenatal care during their first trimester declined between 2021 and 2024, as did the rate of pregnant women who received late or no care. Meanwhile, the rate at which pregnant women initiated prenatal care during their second trimester rate rose. These figures come from a new data brief from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Highlights from the CDC’s findings, taken directly from the report, include: After increasing from 2016 (77.1%) to 2021 (78.3%), prenatal care [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for February 19
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for February 13-19. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress Congress is not in session this week and will return on Monday, February 23. The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing titled “Next Generation of Health Care Workforce” on Tuesday, February 24. View a livestream of the hearing here. The Courts A federal court has vacated the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 2024 overhaul of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Rule. [...]
Feds Taking Another Shot at 340B Changes
Only a week after a federal court rejected for a second time its attempt to introduce a new approach to administering the 340B Drug Pricing Program, the Health Resources and Services Administration is going back to the drawing board and trying again to launch the model. In its first step, HRSA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to gather input from interested parties on whether the agency should implement a rebate model under the 340B program and how best to implement such a model. The RFI notes that in [...]
ACA Premium Subsidy Talks Over?
Negotiations seeking to strike a compromise in the elimination of enhanced subsidies for lower-income purchasers of health plans sold on Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges appear to have died a quiet death. Talks between Democratic and Republican negotiators focused on a one- or two-year extension of those subsidies, but once the subsidies ended at the close of 2025 and then Congress enacted an FY 2026 funding bill for the Department of Health and Human Services, those talks appeared to collapse. Learn more about the issues that negotiators stumbled over and [...]