Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Critics Slam GOP's CHIP Extension As Providing 'Health Care For Some At Expense Of Others'
Nearly 100 House Democrats are urging congressional leaders to pass a bipartisan extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). In a letter sent Friday, 99 House Democrats urged leaders of the House and Senate to reject the House-passed CHIP extension and instead work on a bipartisan solution. (Weixel, 12/8)
Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office is raising “concerns” that Louisiana’s governor cannot legally sidestep lawmakers to enter into $15.4 billion in Medicaid contracts through an emergency process. Sixteen Republican state senators asked Landry to determine if Gov. John Bel Edwards can use emergency provisions to keep five managed-care companies operating services for 1.5 million Medicaid patients. The guidance issued to lawmakers by the GOP attorney general suggests that if the Democratic governor’s administration continues services by invoking the emergency statute, the contracts could be subject to legal dispute. (Deslatte, 12/11)
[Assistant Attorney General John Morris] said Edwards, a Democrat, and the Louisiana Department of Health do not have the authority to extend five contracts with private companies for 23 months, as the governor wants, if lawmakers on the Legislature's budget committees won't vote for them. The contract extensions have won the approval of the Senate Finance Committee, but the House Appropriations Committee voted down the arrangements twice in November. (O'Donoghue, 12/10)
The agency that runs Texas’ Medicaid program owes the federal government about $1 million dollars for making payments to cover health care services for dozens of people who weren’t alive. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission pays managed care organizations a fixed rate to provide medically necessary services to Medicaid recipients. (Rice, 12/9)
