The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this week finding that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is insufficiently open about Medicaid demonstrations. Demonstrations allow states to test new approaches to delivering services under the Medicaid Program. Currently, demonstrations account for nearly a third of Medicaid spending.

Drug prices have been in the news lately, and a timely analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation gives valuable insight into prescription drug spending across large employer plans, Medicaid, and Medicare Part D. By understanding spending and prescribing patterns across these payers, policymakers can make better decisions about lowering the cost of medications for consumers.

This week, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an “early look” at the 2017 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) results, including preliminary estimates about the Medicare population. The MCBS targets the Medicare population that resides in “the community” and does not include individuals who live in a nursing facility.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, have put a rule in place that will change the look of television ads for prescription medications. Last week, CMS announced that most drugs that are covered by Medicare or Medicaid must soon include pricing information in their TV ads.

A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that people with Medicare who choose Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have lower Medicare spending and use fewer services relative to their peers with Original Medicare, even before they enroll in MA.

While most people newly eligible for Medicare are automatically enrolled in Part B—because they are collecting Social Security retirement benefits at age 65—a growing number are not, as they are working later in life and deferring their Social Security benefits. Unlike those who are auto-enrolled in Part B, these individuals must make an active Medicare enrollment choice, taking into consideration specific timelines and existing coverage.

The Medicare Trustee’s report underscores what we already know: Medicare is strong and built to last. We urge lawmakers to pursue commonsense reforms—like reversing the tax bill’s troubling trajectory, reigning in high prescription drug prices, and eliminating Medicare Advantage overpayments—to ensure it stays that way.

Last year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the Medicare program, released a draft version of the annual “Medicare & You” handbook that contained several glaring inaccuracies. In a significant advocacy success, Medicare Rights and our allies convinced CMS to correct these major errors and release a final 2019 handbook that was greatly improved.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees the Medicare program, released information about eight new payment and delivery models this week. Five of these models, collectively known as the CMS Primary Cares Initiative, will test new ways to pay Medicare primary care and other providers while the other three would explore ways for Medicare and Medicaid to better work together to provide coverage.

This week, Health Affairs released a report finding that, increasingly, middle-income seniors will have not enough money to cover the cost of housing and healthcare. The authors project that by 2029, 14.4 million people over age 75 will be “middle income.” Around 60% of these older adults will have mobility limitations and 20% of whom will have high health care needs, but their incomes will put them at risk of not being able to afford health care or housing. Unfortunately, middle-income seniors are not served by the private seniors housing industry nor by the supportive housing available to lower income individuals. This means that 54% of these individuals will not have sufficient resources to pay for the level of care provided in senor housing.