Members of Congress from both parties raised concerns about the potential impact on rural hospitals in the OBBBA. In response, and just prior to passage, the Senate added $50 billion in funding for a new 'rural health transformation program.' This brief describes the rural health fund, explains what the law says about the allocation of funds, and highlights outstanding questions about how the funds will be distributed across and within states to pay rural hospitals and for other purposes.
Geisinger is eliminating nearly 100 Geisinger Health Plan positions as part of a restructuring that comes as the system's health insurance operation faces financial headwinds, officials said. 'There are no staff reductions elsewhere at Geisinger,' system President and CEO Dr. Terry Gilliland said in the message sent to all Geisinger employees and reviewed by The Times-Tribune. 'In fact, we're currently recruiting for approximately 2,500 open positions systemwide, and expect many impacted GHP employees to transition into new roles within Geisinger.' But Gilliland's message also notes financial challenges that Geisinger Health Plan has grappled with in recent years, including a $231 million operating loss last year. It's still operating at a loss despite performing 'much better' this year, per the internal correspondence.
Eden Prairie-based UnitedHealth Group has engaged in a widespread campaign to quash criticism, according to a The New York Times investigation. The findings suggest that the company used legal threats to impede news sources and activists from publishing negative information about the company. The Times investigation began with a tip that a docuseries critical of the healthcare industry was taken off of Amazon and Vimeo after a law firm working with UnitedHealth Group sent a letter claiming defamation. The filmmaker, Mary Strause, had helped manage pharmacies and was hoping to shed light on drug industry middlemen, including UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum Rx.
Medicare is proposing across-the-board cuts to what Trump administration officials believe are overpriced medical procedures, scans, and tests — a consequential decision designed to even the score between highly paid specialists and primary care doctors.
Hospitals lost big in President Donald Trump's megabill, but they still have plenty of time to fight back. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed on the 4th of July will take a $340 billion bite out of hospital budgets over a decade to pay for tax cuts and other Trump priorities. Then again, maybe it won't. Congress delayed implementation of the most devastating of those cuts till 2028, and hospitals, their armies of lobbyists and many allies on Capitol Hill are already gearing up to use the next two and a half years to persuade lawmakers to rescind them. And 2028 is not only an election year, but a presidential one.
A federal judge has ruled that medical debt can remain on Americans' credit reports, cancelling a policy set in place by the Biden administration to help relieve the burden of healthcare expenses weighing on nearly a third of the population. The ruling — handed down by U.S. District Court of Texas' Eastern District Judge Sean Jordan on Friday — was a major blow to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has fought against medical debt as a metric of credit worthiness.