Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
State Lawmakers Advance Budgets That Impact Health Programs
The Health and Human Services budget passed by Minnesota’s Senate and House of Representatives will increase health care costs for the working Minnesotans covered by MinnesotaCare. The Health and Human Services budget (Senate File 1458) stops well short of the House’s attempt to repeal MinnesotaCare, but it raises out-of-pocket costs and premiums. Lawmakers made these changes to a time-tested, proven tool for affordable health care despite a projected surplus in the fund that pays for it. (Horowitz, 5/21)
Low-income childless adults on Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus Medicaid program may have to pay higher premiums if they engage in risky behavior. The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee approved Gov. Scott Walker's proposal that could lead to the change as part of a wide-ranging Medicaid motion Thursday. (5/22)
The Legislature's finance committee has rejected Gov. Scott Walker's cuts to Wisconsin's popular SeniorCare program. Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal calls for cutting $97 million from the senior citizen prescription drug discount program. It also would require participants to first sign up for the federal Medicare Part D drug program and use SeniorCare as backup coverage. (5/22)
As final details of the state's next budget for health and human services emerged Wednesday, Republicans hailed a fiscally conservative approach to serving the state’s neediest populations, while doctors’ groups and advocates for the poor saw little to celebrate. (Walters, 5/21)
Planned Parenthood would be ousted from the state’s program to provide breast and cervical cancer screenings for low-income women under the budget compromise approved by a House-Senate conference committee Wednesday. A tiered funding system that the Texas Senate sought for the joint federal-state Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program — which provides cancer screenings for poor, uninsured women — was meant to effectively eliminate Planned Parenthood's role in the program. (Ura, 5/21)
In the latest blow to Planned Parenthood, Texas lawmakers have approved a budget measure to exclude the organization’s health clinics from a state program that funds breast and cervical cancer screenings and helps women pay for treatment. (Martin, 5/21)
