Tag: Medicaid

Biden-Harris Admin on Track to Oversee Massive $1 Trillion in Improper Payments, Watchdog Group Finds

Daily Caller News Foundation
Congress Spending

If current trends persist, the Biden-Harris administration will have made over $1 trillion in improper payments by the time President Joe Biden leaves office, according to a report released by the watchdog organization Open The Books on Thursday.

An improper payment is a disbursement “made by the government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount or for the wrong reason,” per federal guidelines. The Biden-Harris administration, between 2021 and 2023, oversaw $801.4 billion in such payments after adjusting for inflation, according to the report.

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Texas, Montana Sue Biden over Rule Requiring States to Pay for ‘Gender Transition’

The Center Square
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (composite image)

Texas and Montana have sued the Biden administration over another federal rule change it implemented, this time over one that requires states to pay for “gender transition” procedures through their Medicaid programs.

It also requires health-care providers to perform such procedures in states where the practice has been banned, including in Montana and Texas. Their state legislatures passed bills their governors signed into law prohibiting “gender transition” procedures from being performed on minors in their states, among other restrictions.

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Utah Gives Taxpayer-Funded Health Care to Illegal Immigrant Children

Virginia Star Staff
Utah Bill

Utah is giving taxpayer-funded health insurance to illegal immigrant children, according to a law that went into effect Jan. 1.

Roughly 6,500 illegal immigrant children in Utah will qualify for care under the program, Thaiss Del Rio, a health policy analyst at Voices for Utah Children, told Axios of the new law. Utah’s move follows a decision by the state of California to provide health care for illegal immigrants up to the age of 49.

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Commentary: As Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Market Share Goes Up, So Does Its Taxpayer Funding

Virginia Star Staff

To borrow from an old saying, nothing can be certain except for death and taxpayer funding for the abortion industry. At the request of pro-life members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office released the latest round of data detailing how much taxpayer funding goes to Planned Parenthood and other international abortion organizations. From 2019 through 2021, Planned Parenthood in the U.S. received $1.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

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Nevada Spent Millions on Sex Changes and Trans Hormones, Including for Those Under 18

Virginia Star Staff

The state of Nevada paid $12.5 million for transgender medical services and procedures over the past eight years, according to documents obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services provided data to the Daily Caller News Foundation showing that from January 2015 to May 2023, the state paid $12,572,974 for transgender medical procedures, therapy and treatments through Medicaid and Nevada Check Up (NCU). The payments were for insurance claims tagged with “Gender Identity” and national drug codes, as well as for claims tagged with procedure codes related to transgender care, including surgeries, infertility, counseling and speech therapy, according to the documents.

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Medicaid Emergency Spending for Illegal Migrants Doubles in One Year to $7 Billion: GOP House

Just the News

Medicaid emergency spending for illegal immigrants more than doubled from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2021, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green.

During a congressional hearing Wednesday on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ job performance, Green said more people have entered the U.S. illegally under his roughly two-year tenure “than in the 12 years of the Obama and Trump administrations combined.”

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Virginia Employees of Federally-Contracted Call Center Go on Strike

The Center Square

Hundreds of employees of the country’s largest federally-contracted call center went on strike in Virginia last week to protest claims of “unfair layoffs,” poor pay, lack of career advancement opportunities and racial inequality in the workplace.

Maximus is contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services to supply call center services for the federally-mandated health care marketplace, Medicaid and Medicare enrollees, and the CDC-INFO line. Maximus employees handle millions of calls on behalf of HHS every year.

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Republicans Take a Page from Democrats, Offer Novel Idea on Medicaid

Just the News

Democrats are trying to paint Republicans as enemies of Medicaid, but Florida GOP Rep. Daniel Webster is gaining support for a bill that would provide a tax deduction to healthcare providers in exchange for pro bono health services for people who rely on Medicaid or CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Webster’s Helping Everyone Access Long Term Healthcare Act, or HEALTH Act, would amend the IRS code to allow medical professionals to take a tax deduction for the value of service performed, which he says will reduce the amount of paperwork associated with the low-income healthcare systems.

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Commentary: The ‘Limit, Save, Grow’ Plan’s Discretionary Spending Caps that Save More than $3 Trillion Might Not Be Enough

Admin

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the House Republican majority have unveiled their spending plan for the next decade, the Limit, Save, Grow Act, that will be tied to a $1.5 trillion increase in the $31.4 trillion national debt ceiling, the centerpiece of which imposes discretionary budget caps beginning in 2024, but which will be set at 2022 levels, which could save more than $3.2 trillion over the next decade, according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

While an official score still has not come in from the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal stands out as a promise kept on McCarthy’s part to use the must-pass debt ceiling to restore some semblance of fiscal sanity to the out-of-control federal budget and national debt, the latter of which the White House Office of Management and Budget projects will rise to a gargantuan $50.7 trillion by 2033.

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17 State Attorneys General Declare Support for Florida Trans Guidance

Virginia Star Staff

by Eric Lendrum   On April 7th, an amicus brief was filed in favor of Florida’s current ban on using state funds to support “transgender” treatments, with 17 state attorneys general voicing their support for the law. According to the Daily Caller, the brief’s filing was part of an ongoing legal…

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Virginia Gov. Youngkin Proposes Amendment to ‘Stopgap’ Budget to Include Medicaid Renewal

The Center Square

As Virginia resumes the Medicaid renewal process that was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Glenn Youngkin is asking the General Assembly to amend the “skinny” budget passed during the legislative session to include millions in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to support the process.  

The General Assembly adjourned at the end of February without a finalized budget. Instead, lawmakers approved a “stopgap” budget bill that included just a few items, including funding to address a calculation error that overstated the amount of state aid Virginia schools could expect to receive. 

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‘That’s a Lie’: GOP Senator Presses Janet Yellen on Plan to Pay for Social Security

Virginia Star Staff

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana accused the Biden administration of lying about its commitment to working with Congress to protect seniors’ social security benefits at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.

Cassidy asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was testifying about President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024, if the president was aware that “when [Social Security] goes broke in nine years” there would be a 24% cut in benefits for current recipients.

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Commentary: Medicaid Expansion Fails to Deliver on Promises

RealClearWire

Medicaid expansion is failing states across the nation according to a recent Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) report. The report found states that have expanded Medicaid have faced more hospital closures than states that haven’t expanded the program. Of course, for years, advocates have claimed that expansion would be a necessary provision for financial health and job security for hospitals. Though, as suspected, data reveals the opposite. More accurately, non-expansion states have seen improved profitability, a larger bed capacity, and increased job growth. 

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Dozens of Hospitals Have Closed in States That Expanded Medicaid, Research Shows

Virginia Star Staff

Medicaid expansion has failed to prevent hospital closure, with almost 50 shutting down in expansion states since 2014, according to research given exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The research from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) indicates that while Medicaid expansion was intended to solve hospitals’ finances and job shortage, its “empty promises” have done the opposite, report author Hayden Dublois wrote. Hospitals instead have had to shut their doors, lost thousands of jobs and racked up substantial losses, amounting to a loss of almost 5,400 beds.

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The Number of Medicaid Recipients Will Soon Top 100 Million U.S Residents: Report

The Center Square

The United States will have 100 million residents on Medicaid in the next 72 days, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability, meaning that nearly one-third of all Americans will be on the program for health care.

Over the past three years, states have been prevented from removing recipients from the program through a federal COVID-19 emergency. Now, the date when states can begin to re-registering recipients when that emergency ends on April 1.

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Qualifying Families Need to Apply for Free School Meals After End of Pandemic-Era Student Meals Provided to All

Eric Burk

The Virginia Department of Education is reminding families qualifying for free meals for students to apply for the program after pandemic-era federal provisions for free meals for all students expired at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, meaning that otherwise qualifying families could face charges for meals starting on the first day of school.

“School meals are important sources of nutrition for students and help reduce food insecurity in the Commonwealth,” Superintendent of Public Education Jillian Balow said in a Monday VDOE newsletter. “I urge all families to apply to determine if they qualify. Filling out an application is simple and takes less than 15 minutes.”

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Sixteen States File New Lawsuit Against Federal COVID Vaccination Mandate

The Center Square

Sixteen states again are challenging a federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care workers who work at facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.

Friday’s filing in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana comes after the issuance of final guidance on the mandate from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), arguing the guidance is an action that is reviewable.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled by 5-4 vote Jan. 13 against the original Louisiana challenge to the mandate and a similar Missouri filing.

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Iowa Governor Requests DHS Staff Salary Increases, ‘Status Quo’ on Medicaid Funding

The Center Square

For the first time in at least 15 years, an Iowa governor has not recommended funding changes for Medicaid.

The announcement was made by Legislative Service Agency Analyst Jess Benson as he presented Gov. Kim Reynolds’ fiscal year 2023 Department of Health and Human Services budget recommendations Tuesday.

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Liberal Supreme Court Justices Show Weak Grasp of Basic COVID-19 Facts

Virginia Star Staff

The liberal justices on the Supreme Court demonstrated a stunningly weak grasp of basic facts concerning the COVID-19 pandemic Friday, as they defended the Biden regime’s policies during oral arguments over vaccine mandates in the workplace.

The court heard separate oral arguments over federal vaccine mandates for employers with more than 100 employees, and for health care workers at facilities receiving Medicaid and Medicare funding.

Justice Stephen Breyer at one point seemed to suggest outrageously that the OSHA mandate would prevent 100 percent of daily US COVID cases. It is common knowledge now that the vaccinated people can still spread the disease.

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Facing Labor Shortages, Several Large Hospital Systems Drop Vaccine Mandates

Virginia Star Staff

Several large U.S. hospital systems have dropped their COVID-19 vaccine requirements for employees in the wake of a U.S. district court’s temporary halt of the Biden regime’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

After months of protests, the mandate forced thousands of hospital employees to either resign, or be terminated because of their refusal to get vaccinated.

Louisiana-based federal Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction on November 30, blocking the federal government from mandating the experimental injections for workers at Medicare or Medicaid-funded healthcare facilities in 40 states.

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Lawsuits Challenging Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Mount, Likely Heading to U.S. Supreme Court

The Center Square

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the Biden administration over three different vaccine mandates targeting private employees, federal employees and healthcare workers serving Medicare and Medicaid patients.

But lawsuits filed by 27 states over the private sector mandate is setting the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in because they were filed directly in five federal courts of appeals.

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Commentary: After Disastrous September and 2022 Midterms Looming, Biden May Have Lost His Mandate to Govern

Virginia Star Staff

Following a catastrophic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the highest inflation since 2008,pushing unpopular COVID vaccine mandates, rationing COVID treatments to red states and finally, watching his domestic legislative agenda falter in Congress, President Joe Biden is already upside down on his job approval ratings, according to the latest average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.

Reuters/Ipsos on Sept. 29-30 had Biden’s approval at 46 percent and disapproval at 50 percent.

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Commentary: House Abortion Bill Would Repeal Existing Laws, Prohibit Future Pro-Life Laws

Virginia Star Staff

In response to pro-life policy victories like the Texas Heartbeat Act and an upcoming Supreme Court case asking the justices to provide a constitutional course correction to America’s arbitrary and unworkable abortion jurisprudence, pro-abortion legislators in Congress are advancing a deceptively named piece of legislation called the Women’s Health Protection Act. The radical, far-reaching proposal would entrench unfettered access to abortion in federal law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her congressional allies—as well as the media —have characterized the Women’s Health Protection Act as simply “codifying Roe v. Wade.”

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Commentary: Don’t Expect Any State Flexibility Under Obama 2.0

RealClearWire

The “circle back” meme in the Biden White House isn’t limited to Jen Psaki’s avoidance of tough questions at press briefings. The Biden administration demonstrated that it also intends to circle back to the way things were under the Obama years when it comes to managing Medicaid. Rather than taking a cooperative approach to the state and federal partnership, Obama 2.0 is committed to running the program by decree and eliminating flexibilities that improve the program. Unfortunately, states hoping for true flexibility will be disappointed, as Medicaid flexibility has departed for Mar-a-Lago.

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Trump Administration to Announce Medicare, Medicaid Will Cover Eventual COVID-19 Vaccine According to Report

Virginia Star Staff

The Trump administration is expected to announce that the eventual coronavirus vaccine will be covered by Medicare and Medicaid, Politico reported late Monday.

The administration is expected to change a rule that previously prevented Medicare and Medicaid from covering vaccines that received emergency use authorization from the FDA. The official announcement is expected from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Tuesday or Wednesday, according to Politico.

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Congressional Debate: Candidates Scott Taylor and Incumbent Elaine Luria Spar Over Stimulus Packages and Gun Control

Corinne Murdock

Republican challenger Scott Taylor and incumbent Representative Elaine Luria (D-Virginia Beach) faced off Tuesday night in their first televised debate. The 2nd Congressional District race is currently a toss-up.
Political reporter Joe St. George served as the moderator. Questions featured were presented in three segments: from the moderator first, then viewers, and lastly from Taylor and Luria.

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Obamacare Loophole Allows Medicaid Fraud, Costs Taxpayers, Report Says

Virginia Star Staff

The Affordable Care Act mandated that states accept a hospitals’ decision on the eligibility of all able-bodied adults who verbally report their income to be below the Medicaid level, which has led to many fraudulent eligibility claims, according to a report published Monday.

The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) report examined recently released data from state Medicaid agencies. It specifically looked at the government Medicaid funds that were wasted through false hospitals’ presumptive eligibility (HPE) determinations.

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Commentary: Lowering the Cost of Prescription Medicines for Seniors Is Not Impossible

Virginia Star Staff

Earlier this year James Payne, a 73-year-old retired attorney in Utah, was so fed up with the high cost of a blood thinner medication he takes, he researched prices in Canada, where he found it was cheaper.

“Under Medicare, I am now paying $225 for a three-month supply,” Payne explained. “That’s $25 more than I was paying last year. Under my employer’s insurance I was only paying $20.” Payne says he is not sure why the costs are so much higher and continue to climb under Medicare, but he thinks there must be ways to make life-saving medications more affordable.

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GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Jeff Johnson Challenges Double Whammy Cost to State of Federal Refugee Program

Chris Alto

GOP gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson has raised the trifecta of issues facing states where the federal government’s contractors are resettling refugees – cost, transparency and accountability.  Johnson’s call to pause refugee resettlement in Minnesota demonstrates his understanding that costs being forced onto the state to pay for the federal program is…

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Republican Dave Joyce Releases Bizarre Campaign Ad Distancing Himself from Trump

Anthony Gockowski

In a risky political move, Rep. Dave Joyce recently tried to distance himself from President Trump in a congressional district that the president won by 12 percentage points in the 2016 Election. Joyce, who is seeking reelection in Ohio’s 14th Congressional District, recently released an ad in which he touts…

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This New Health Plan Expansion Is a Godsend for Small Businesses Like Mine

Admin
business meeting

by Kalena Bruce   Last month, the Trump administration took a concrete step to lower skyrocketing health care costs for middle-class families like mine. The Department of Labor issued a final rule expanding association health plans, which allow small businesses like my farm to band together with others to negotiate bulk rates…

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