The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released a new issue brief showing how growth in Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollment and overpayment caused an estimated $7 billion in additional Medicare spending in 2019. This analysis comes just before the anticipated release of the Medicare trustee’s report, an annual projection of Medicare spending […]
On Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives briefly returned from summer recess to approve the Senate-passed budget resolution. Committees in both chambers are working to draft bill language by September 15. This process represents an historic opportunity to improve health care access and affordability. In addition to much-needed Medicare reforms, […]
This week, the Biden administration unveiled plans to offer booster doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, pending U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) review and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Under the plan, the booster shot […]
President Biden recently outlined his vision for improving prescription drug affordability. His plan calls on Congress to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, impose penalties on drug companies that raise prices faster than inflation, and cap Medicare beneficiary out-of-pocket drug costs. The speech builds on previously stated goals. During his April 28 Joint Address to […]
This week, Senate Democrats passed their $3.5 trillion budget resolution, laying the groundwork for legislation that is expected to include key Biden administration and congressional priorities. The non-binding framework instructs Senate Committees to begin writing legislation that meets certain spending and policy targets, with the goal of completing a draft […]
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) recently released a report examining Medicare beneficiary access to dental care, including the share of Medicare beneficiaries with dental coverage, the share with a dental visit in the past 12 months, and their out-of-pocket spending on dental care. Troublingly, they found that nearly half of all people […]
Late last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a watchdog agency in the legislative branch, released a report showing that people in their last year of life disproportionately disenrolled from Medicare Advantage (MA) into Original Medicare. For some MA plans, these enrollees switched to Original Medicare at a rate nearly […]
Medicare is associated with significant reductions in “racial and ethnic disparities in insurance coverage, access to care, and self-reported health,” according to a new study led by the Yale School of Public Health and published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Evidence has long linked Medicare eligibility […]
