Week in Washington

Preventive Service Case

The Supreme Court held oral arguments on the future the ACA preventive service requirements. Before the Court is the question of whether certain preventive services would remain in effect. SCOTUS appears to be leaning towards allowing the preventive services requirements in effect but allow the HHS Secretary the ability to veto coverage requirements. Wakely recently released a paper on the cost implications if there are changes to the requirements.  You can find it here.  A ruling on the case is expected in June/early July.

On The Hill

Congress currently is in recess until the beginning of May. When it returns, it is expected to immediately start the process of marking up the reconciliation bill. One policy that is widely expected to be included in the bill is allowing states to apply work requirements to their Medicaid programs. Modern Healthcare has a good summary of the impacts prior work requirement policies had on the Medicaid programs in Arkansas and Georgia.

Proposed Regulation

A new proposed Medicaid regulation reached OMB. While the exact details won’t be known the overall theme of the proposed regulation “would update existing regulations that govern the process for States to obtain a waiver of the statutory requirements that health care-related taxes are broad based and uniform to ensure that taxes passing the statistical test are generally redistributive.”