- Both the House and Senate have introduced bills to extend the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is on track to expire Sept. 30. That legislative momentum also received some powerful backing last Thursday when the New York Times posted an op-ed co-authored by Hillary Clinton and former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist in which they pushed for extending CHIP. The gesture reflects the mood on Capitol Hill. “Politically, this isn't the Affordable Care Act all over—there's no real disagreement that the program is needed and worthwhile,” said John Rother, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care. “CHIP renewal has bipartisan support in general—Clinton and Frist reinforce that.”
- Providers will have to wait at least another year for a final decision on how far back the CMS may go in collecting overpayments made by Medicare. The CMS has extended by another year its timeline for publishing a final rule on procedures and policies for reporting and returning Medicare overpayments, according to a notice the CMS released last Friday. The proposed rule, published three years ago, alarmed many providers by floating the idea that providers would be liable for returning Medicare overpayments going back as far as 10 years.
- Kentucky is seeing a positive economic impact in its first 12 months of Medicaid expansion, even above the state's projections in 2013, according to new data released last week by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. The state added 12,000 jobs last year, including more than 5,400 in healthcare, as a result of the Affordable Care Act. That number is expected to rise to 40,000 new jobs by 2021, said Beshear, who placed the net economic impact on the state at $30 billion over eight years. Kentucky experienced the second-largest state drop in an uninsured population in the country, with the number of residents without coverage falling below 12% of the state's population in 2014.
House, Senate introduce bills to extend CHIP
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