The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) advocacy team monitors healthcare related legislation, rule changes, and legislative updates for Ohio’s family physicians.
To access the OAFP Bill Tracker, visit the OAFP Public Policy webpage and click on the Bill Tracker icon.
Read on for this week’s updates and contact Advocacy Coordinator Kaela Springhetti with questions or for ways to get involved.
May Issue of AAFP’s Family Medicine Advocacy Rounds
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has released its May issue of Family Medicine Advocacy Rounds, a monthly tip sheet to educate, engage, and update you on the latest policy issues affecting family physicians and their patients.
- AAFP Responds to House Budget Reconciliation Package
- House of Medicine Urges Congress to Protect Medicaid
- AAFP President Highlights Importance of Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Programs
- AAFP Shares Priorities With New NIH, CMS Leaders
- AAFP Weighs in on Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling
- AAFP Urges FDA to Cap Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes
- AAFP Shares Recommendations for AI in Healthcare
- AAFP Meets With Federal Health IT Leaders
- Physicians Who Start in Family Medicine Stay in Family Medicine, Study Shows
- Primary Care for America Brings Together Healthcare Leaders, Innovators
Speaker Huffman Discusses Medicaid Work Requirements
Source: Hannah News
Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima, OH) told reporters recently he believed the public would “benefit greatly” if Medicaid work requirements are put in place. That would help provide more workers, supporting businesses and alleviating current challenges in public access to goods and services as a result, he said.
“Thirdly, I would argue that in general, people are better off if they’re going to work every day than when they’re not,” Speaker Huffman continued. He acknowledged exceptions include people with disabilities, those who cannot work or choose not to work while not receiving Medicaid benefits.
“I think it is a huge help to Ohioans in general but also to those two particular groups that are going to be affected directly by it,” he said as well.
U.S. House-Passed Mega Spending Bill Includes Strict Federal Medicaid Work Requirements
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Among the spending cuts proposed in House Republicans’ massive spending bill is a policy they have sought to enact for a decade: a requirement that Medicaid recipients provide proof of employment as a condition of receiving health insurance.
The work requirement in the bill that just passed the House represents the strictest version Republicans in Congress have ever put forward. The reporting requirements are more stringent than in previous bills. It would be easier to lose benefits, and harder to re-enroll. And it would apply to a larger set of Medicaid recipients, including Americans previously determined to be too old to need such requirements.
The legislation, which President Trump supports, still needs to pass the Senate, where Republican members are supportive of work requirements but where a few have expressed reservations about large Medicaid cuts.
By designing the work requirement proposal to be so rigid, the change could be just as transformative to the program as other large cuts that Republicans rejected. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this and other Medicaid changes in an earlier version of the bill would cause 7.6 million people to become uninsured. Most of the people expected to lose coverage would be eligible for the program but unable to prove it under the law’s strict paperwork standard.
KFF has developed a resource that details health-related provisions in the House-passed spending bill.
Federal Judge Halts HHS Block on Billions in State, Local Public Health Funds
Source: Health Policy Institute of Ohio
Recently, a federal judge indefinitely blocked the Trump Administration from pulling back more than $11 billion in public health funding from state and local health departments.
The ruling from Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island extends a temporary restraining order she issued in April that stopped the administration from wiping out the pandemic-era funding to a group of 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.
The attorneys general suing the administration said the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acted unlawfully when it suddenly ended the grants, without any analysis of the benefits of the health funding or the dire consequences of termination.
State and local health department leaders said the money was already in their hands. Even though the grants were initially authorized by COVID relief legislation, they were allowed to be used for non-COVID priorities, including responding to the measles outbreak in Texas.
Judge McElroy wrote the states show a high likelihood of success because “Congress did not expressly limit the funds to COVID-19 related programs and services” and, importantly, “did not grant HHS authority to rescind or reallocate the funds, nor did it authorize such drastic action.”