Medicare For All loses appeal in recent months.
Last week, we touched on how Warren’s and Sander’s Medicare for All plans were getting attacked by their fellow Democratic candidates (Biden, Buttigieg).
Now, Nancy Pelosi is joining on the fun – as it turns out, she’s not a big fan of Medicare for All, either.
Finally, Pete Buttigieg chimed in with his healthcare plan this week, calling it “Medicare for All who want it.” Creative.
At the state level.
What’s more telling is what’s happening in state elections.
Democratic incumbents are shying away (WSJ paywall) from Medicare for All rhetoric, which signals that they don’t think it’s a viable or popular policy to run for re-election on – OR, they don’t want to be associated with Warren/Sanders camps.
It makes sense – healthcare is such a huge employer in most every market. Would voters approve of a policy where their jobs might be at stake?
The risk might not be worth it when they have easy healthcare talking points to Democratic voters, like Medicaid expansion and keeping preexisting conditions.
Pelosi’s drug plan is getting ghosted by the White House.
The White House isn’t really on board with Pelosi’s drug plan, and is distancing itself from the policy. Maybe they have something better in mind. Like surprise billing, drug pricing is in complete gridlock.
Medicaid Work Requirements screech to a halt.
Kentucky, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Montana all are ending their Medicaid work requirements programs for various reasons. Indiana is pausing its program as another court case challenging its Medicaid program makes its way through the legal system.
Meanwhile, Kentucky’s new governor isn’t a fan of Medicaid work requirements either. The night Beshear won (I guess that’s still up for debate though?), he promised to get rid of the policy.
Finally, Montana delayed its plans to enact Medicaid work requirements on Jan. 1, along with New Hampshire, which found that less than a third of people under Medicaid work requirements were in compliance with the program.
Proposed price transparency ruling from the Trump admin expected by the end of the year
While it wasn’t included in the final ruling for the Medicare physician fee schedule, ModernHealthcare reports that the Trump admin is still expected to release an updated proposed ruling on the ever-contentious price transparency policy. Stay tuned…
Trump Nominates Stephen Hahn to head FDA.
As we all expected, Trump nominated renowned cancer doctor Stephen Hahn for FDA commissioner