Medicaid's funding changes under the law are not scheduled to take effect until 2028, well past the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. Some work requirements could come earlier, however. They are to begin no later than Dec. 31, 2026.
More than 300 hospitals could be at risk for closure under the budget resolution signed July 4 by President Donald Trump, according to an analysis by the Cecil G. Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Even as Congress haggled over the controversial bill, a health clinic in the southwest Nebraska town of Curtis announced Wednesday it will close in the coming months, in part blaming the anticipated Medicaid cuts.
CMS will implement prior authorization requirements for certain traditional fee-for-service Medicare services in six states starting next year. New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Washington will begin using the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model to perform prior authorization evaluations, CMS announced in a Federal Register notice. This will apply to 17 services that CMS says 'are vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.'
A woman is being held on a $50,000 bail for mailing a letter with a mysterious substance to an insurance office in Las Vegas, according to LVMPD. On June 24, Metro police received a call about a United Healthcare employee that opened a letter that held a mysterious black and yellow substance. According to LVMPD, the letter said something about a fungus. The employee did not show symptoms and left the third floor mail room.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear argued the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump's sweeping tax policy bill will have a 'devastating' impact on rural communities. He said around 200,000 people in Kentucky are could lose their healthcare under the bill, which implements new work requirements for Medicaid and a raft of other restrictions that healthcare experts argue will trigger hospital closures in rural areas.
President Trump's tax and spending bill sets in motion nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health policy changes that could loom over the midterm elections. But the real effects likely won't be felt until well after the ballots are cast. Despite negative polls and headlines, bill supporters could be insulated from political blame by a slow drip of policy changes that will play out over the next decade — a contrast to when the GOP tried to repeal Obamacare in 2017.