Yesterday, Dylan Scott and Sarah Kliff at Vox got their hands on a leaked version of a draft rule from HHS that, if adopted, would make it much easier for employers to drop contraception coverage for their employees. The rule is under review at the Office of Management and Budget; it could be approved any […]
Last Thursday, fifteen states and the District of Columbia moved to intervene in House v. Price, the case about the ACA’s cost-sharing reductions. At the same time, they asked the court to hear the case promptly. This is a bigger deal than it may seem, and could offer some comfort to insurers that are in […]
To corral some last-minute votes, the House leadership has endorsed the Upton amendment to the American Health Care Act. The legislative text was released late yesterday, giving members no time to understand what it does before they vote on it today. That’s a shame: the amendment works at cross-purposes with other parts of the AHCA, […]
So begins a post from Rachel Sachs, Darius Lakdawalla, and me at the Health Affairs Blog on the complicated interplay between value-based pricing and Medicaid’s best-price rule. What is the best-price rule? Does it really impede the adoption of value-based pricing? If so, what can be done about it? To keep federal spending in check, […]
This post was co-authored with Rachel Sachs, a professor at Washington University School of Law. It has been cross-posted at Take Care, a blog concerned with President Trump’s constitutional duty to take care to faithfully execute the law. Yesterday, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump admitted that he’s toying with the idea […]
Over at National Review, Yuval Levin argues that a Republican consensus over repeal and replace might slowly be emerging: It now seems that the familiar debates about tax credits vs. deductions and even about spending levels aren’t exactly where the dividing lines are in the House conference. Rather, … the Freedom Caucus Republicans want to […]
In their latest amendment to the American Health Care Act, House Republicans have created something called an “invisible risk sharing program.” The amendment is befuddling. The invisible program is a minor tweak that won’t improve the AHCA’s dismal coverage numbers. It’s not even really a program. If there’s any prospect at all of salvaging Republican-style […]
I’ve got a piece at Vox discussing what happens next with House v. Price, the Obamacare litigation over whether Congress has appropriated the money to make cost-sharing payments. To bring you quickly up to speed: a district court in Washington, D.C., concluded last year that the Obama administration was breaking the law in making the […]
This post was co-authored with Rachel Sachs, a law professor at Washington University School of Law. It has been cross-posted at Take Care, a new blog concerned with President Trump’s constitutional duty to take care to faithfully execute the law. In his speech after withdrawing the Republican health care bill from consideration on Friday, Speaker of […]
The post has been revised to take into account feedback on how best to understand the manager’s amendment. Last night, House Republicans released the text of the final manager’s amendment to the American Health Care Act, including changes to the rules governing the essential health benefits. With these tweaks, the House hopes to pass the bill today. House […]
In a provocative post from last week, Adam White argued that the D.C. Circuit’s 2012 decision in Sherley v. Sebelius could create difficulties for parties who challenge agency actions taken pursuant to President Trump’s executive orders. Adam makes some good points, but I think Sherley is so badly reasoned that its holding ought to count […]
Today marks the launch of Take Care, a blog “devoted to insightful, accessible, and timely legal analysis of the President’s adherence to [his] duty” to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. For those worried about the rule of law in an Age of Trump (or indeed in any age), the Take Care Blog will be […]
With the release of the dismal CBO report on the American Health Care Act, the administration is playing defense. Secretary Price says the report is “just not believable” because it does not take into account the regulatory changes that he intends to make to bring down the cost of coverage. It also “ignored completely the […]
A bill is moving through Congress—the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act—that would effectively allow businesses to require their employees to disclose lots of sensitive medical data, including their genetic information. It’s an ugly piece of legislation. Explaining why is tricky, but bear with me. * * * The point of workplace wellness programs is to […]
Now that Republicans have finally released their alternative to Obamacare, I’ve got an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times encouraging California and other blue states to take action to protect themselves. [T]he Republican bill would set chaos in motion because it would immediately eliminate the individual mandate — that is, the tax penalty imposed on […]