Week in Washington is brought to you by Michael Cohen, PhD. Tune in each week to read the latest on healthcare policy and get a glimpse of what’s on the horizon
Week in Washington
3/17/2022
Congress
Congress this is week started discussing additional COVID funds. At the last second, additional COVID funds were removed from the Omnibus (budget bill). Consequently, governmental purchases of Covid vaccines, treatments, or tests is expected to be minimal /non-existent this fall without additional funding. It’s unlikely at this time Congress will appropriate substantial amount of funding in the near term.
Family Glitch Fix
A regulation that could alter the Family Glitch arrived OMB this week. For those wondering “what is the family glitch” I’d recommend this KFF primer (has a history/summary of data) but basically it is an Obama-era interpretation of APTC rules that results in certain families with unaffordable employer offers to be denied APTC eligibility. The shift could increase the number of those eligible for premium tax credits for millions of people.
Medicaid Redetermination
Just wanted to flag that KFF released some really useful information about state plans for the end of the PHE including a survey of states as to how they’re planning on conducting redeterminations, follows ups, estimates on number of enrollees impacted, etc. Very useful information!
Covid Numbers
Good news: covid cases, death, and hospitalizations all continued to decline. Case rates are as low as they’ve been since the pre-Delta lull in the summer of 2021. Bad news: cases have increased in other parts of the world, notably Western Europe, which typically has preceded an increase in US case numbers by 3 to 4 weeks.
Previous editions:
03/10/2022: Week in Washington
03/03/2022: Week in Washington
02/24/2022: Week in Washington
02/17/2022: Week in Washington
02/10/2022: Week in Washington
02/03/2022: Week in Washington
01/27/2022: Week in Washington
01/20/2022: Week in Washington