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The Trump-Biden Great Entitlement Debate

After promising not to touch Social Security and Medicare throughout his campaign, GOP 2024 candidate and former President Donald Trump seemingly reopened his views on the issue – only to have Biden attack him and then Trump having to clean up after. Here is the back and forth (this could be the only real debate we see from the candidates) : In comments to a journalist on whether he had changed his views on entitlements, Trump declared: “So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. … There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement.” It seems reasonably clear that Trump likely was talking about cleaning up administration and fighting

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King Charles’ Cancer Diagnosis Shines A Light On Holes In The U.K.’s Healthcare System – And Ours

In early February, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles has been diagnosed with cancer. As is often the case for the royals’ personal lives, not a lot is always shared. But the King and his now deceased mother should be congratulated for some of their openness. Like his mother’s announcements when her health was in question, the King’s announcement was meant to encourage everyone to take care and get preventive care performed. At the same time, the King’s announcement has shined a light on some of the problems in the United Kingdom’s healthcare system. As I have covered a few times in my blogs, the U.K. just celebrated its National Health Services’ 75th anniversary of its founding a few years after World War II ended. The U.K. took the socialized medicine approach, where the government funds, directs, runs, and largely provides healthcare services to its citizens. Some other nations in

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Joe Biden Goes On The Offensive With Healthcare Reforms

Looking for any angle to take the focus off his age and the economy overall, President Joe Biden and Democrats are now focusing on healthcare in the presidential election. In my mind, it is a very good strategy. As I have said in previous blogs, my Republican Party has a compassion gap when it comes to healthcare. Republicans have not formulated any real agenda on healthcare reform. Most tend to distance themselves from any talk of reform. More right-wing elements talk actively of repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has helped in the neighborhood of forty million Americans (not counting those with pre-existing conditions and on their parents’ policies until age 26.) Whatever you think of some of the Democrats’ ideas, the party has actively embraced healthcare reform. Some ideas I clearly hate, such as Medicare for All. But others, like drug price reform and anti-trust activities, make a

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Part 4: My Courageous Daughter Is Having Brain Surgery!

This is one of a number of blogs that will appear on my daughter. I call her Kitty. She is a wonderfully talented, bright, and empathetic individual in her late ‘20s. She and I agreed I would write this series to impart how important health coverage is. Not only is her decision to have surgery courageous, but so is her decision to share her journey through me. The principal reason to share the journey is because we both want to explain what many average Americans go through financially when they have major operations and do not have the best insurance or no insurance at all. My daughter is privileged to come from a well-off family and to have consistent and robust insurance. This will mean that she will pay a tiny amount for a surgery with a sticker price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But for uninsured and

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Medicare Advantage Enrollment Growth Continued From January To February

In my January 22, 2024 Healthcare Labyrinth Blog ( https://www.healthcarelabyrinth.com/great-news-for-insurers-and-medicare-beneficiaries-january-2023-to-january-2024-medicare-advantage-growth-rebounds/ ), I told you about the exciting news of Medicare Advantage’s (MA) continued strong growth (from January 2023 to January 2024) as well as a nice recovery from a bit of a sluggish increase from January 2022 to January 2023. As I always do, I publish short follow-up blogs in the first few months of each year given continuing growth outside of the main enrollment season of October 15 to December 7. The key takeaways from the January 22, 2024 blog were: So what happened with February enrollment? A change over the past few years now allows all members enrolled in an MA plan to change to a different MA plan or go back to traditional Medicare (and also get a standalone Part D plan) between January 1 and March 31 of each year. Previously, an MA member could only

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2024 Medicare Advantage Compliance And Regulatory Issues

A number of folks have texted, LinkedIn messaged, or emailed and asked if I would give an overview of some of the major compliance and regulatory issues Medicare Advantage (MA) plans need to be aware of as the 2024 year gets going. Here is my best take on the major issues from a compliance and regulatory standpoint: Audits in full swing I am hearing from health plan friends that MA audits have already begun this year with January notices. As promised by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), regular program audits are being supplemented with ad hoc audits concerning the 2024 rule requiring major changes to how MA plans perform prior authorization (PA) and utilization management (UM). In addition to adding the ad hoc audits for those under regular program audit, plans can be noticed for just an ad hoc audit as well.  In general, the new rule

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Part 3: My Courageous Daughter Is Having Brain Surgery!

This is one of a number of blogs that will appear on my daughter.  I call her Kitty.  She is a wonderfully talented, bright, and empathetic individual in her late ‘20s.  She and I agreed I would write this series to impart how important health coverage is. Not only is her decision to have surgery courageous, but so is her decision to share her journey through me. The principal reason to share the journey is because we both want to explain what many average Americans go through financially when they have major operations and do not have the best insurance or no insurance at all.  My daughter is privileged to come from a well-off family and to have consistent and robust insurance.  This will mean that she will pay a tiny amount for a surgery with a sticker price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  But for uninsured and

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Part 2: My Courageous Daughter Is Having Brain Surgery!

This is one of a number of blogs that will appear on my daughter.  I call her Kitty.  She is a wonderfully talented, bright, and empathetic individual in her late ‘20s.  She and I agreed I would write this series to impart how important health coverage is. Not only is her decision to have surgery courageous, but so is her decision to share her journey through me. The principal reason to share the journey is because we both want to explain what many average Americans go through financially when they have major operations and do not have the best insurance or no insurance at all.  My daughter is privileged to come from a well-off family and to have consistent and robust insurance.  This will mean that she will pay a tiny amount for a surgery with a sticker price in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  But for uninsured and

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What’s Up? Medicare Costs Will Be Up in 2024, While Medicaid Will Be Down At The Same Time

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reported one of those weird conundrums in healthcare when it outlined expected cost increases in Medicare and Medicaid for 2024.  The CBO said that Medicare is expected to shoot up dramatically just as Medicaid expenditures will drop considerably as well. How is that possible? Let’s dig in here. Medicare The CBO says that Medicare spending will increase by about $65 billion in 2024 to $865 billion.  That is an increase of about 8%.  The significant rise in expected Medicare costs is driven by a few different things: In the outyears, outlays for Medicare will equal 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 and increase to 4.2 percent of GDP in 2034. Medicaid On the flip side, the CBO says Medicaid expenditures will decrease by $58 billion to $557 billion.  This is a drop of about 9%.  The reason for this drop is driven by

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Senate HELP Committee Hearing On Drug Pricing Shows The Deep Divide In Congress

While I covered the topic in my Newsfeed on February 8 and 9, I thought it was important to blog about the February 8 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) drug price hearing. I have listened to every minute of the almost three-hour drug maker CEO hearing (where three brand drug makers testified) as well as an additional thirty-minute hearing presenting the views of advocates and researchers. I want to share my reaction. First, it is important to remember that, while I am a Republican, I march up the middle of the spectrum on health policy in general and share many of the views that Democrats do on drug pricing. I tend to favor what the Democrats have done on drug pricing because I think movement needs to happen and what has passed in the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Medicare drug price negotiations is a good experiment. Second, the

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