Medicaid

When it comes to worries about high health care costs, having health insurance doesn't necessarily spare you, according to a study recently published in JAMA.

Despite the gains in insurance coverage brought by the Affordable Care Act, high health care costs continue to plague many Americans, researchers found. Around 11 million Americans experienced "catastrophic medical expenses" in 2017, the last year the study covered — and privately insured people represented more than half of those.

For the past few months Prognosis Ohio has been spotlighting candidates in Ohio who have a particular interest in health and health care. On this week’s episode, Dan Skinner talks with State Representative Allison Russo of the 24th House district about her campaign for reelection. Russo’s background in the health field shapes her positions and values as a representative.

Dan Skinner talks with Loren Anthes, who is the William C. and Elizabeth M. Troyhaft Chair in Health Planning at the Center for Community Solutions, and leads Community Solutions’ Center for Medicaid Policy. He's also a lecturer at Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, located on the Cleveland campus.

Following a nearly billion dollar drop in the state's economic picture, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine plans to cut $775 in state spending over the next two months.  

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision blocking states' requirements that people must work in order to receive Medicaid.

Residents of Kentucky and Arkansas brought the action against Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, contending that Azar "acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner when he approved Medicaid demonstration requests for Kentucky and Arkansas."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed, writing in an opinion posted Friday that the secretary's authorization was indeed unlawful.

The owner of two closed drug treatment centers in Ohio has been sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for his role in a Medicaid fraud scheme. 

Right now, there are dozens of patients — U.S. citizens — in New Zealand hospitals who are fighting the clock. They have only a few weeks to recover and get home to the tiny island of American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific.

Nearly half a million more children were uninsured in 2018 than in 2017, according to data out Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau. The drop stems primarily from a decline in the number of children covered by public programs such programs as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

The U.S. poverty rate declined slightly last year, but finally fell below the 2007 level, right before the Great Recession pushed millions of Americans out of work and into financial distress.

The improving economy was a key factor in the decline. The U.S. Census Bureau noted in its annual report on income and poverty that there were 2.3 million more full-time, year-round workers last year and that median earnings for all such workers rose by more than three percent.

Ohio's Medicaid enrollment has dropped by more than 250 thousand in the past two years. It's unclear whether those people now have other health coverage or are no longer insured. 

Updated Aug. 27, 2019, 9:55 a.m. ET

The Trump administration is moving forward with a wave of new rules and regulations that would make it more difficult for low-income Americans — especially those in families that include non-citizens — to get government aid. NPR detailed many of the proposals in June, but there have been several developments since then.

For a second time in nine months, the same federal judge has struck down the Trump administration's plan to force some Medicaid recipients to work to maintain benefits.

The state is suing a company that managed prescription benefits for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, seeking to recover nearly 16 million dollars in alleged overcharges. 

A backlog in processing applications for Ohio Medicaid eligibility continues to delay health care and cause financial difficulties for providers.