And hospitals are warning Medicaid cuts will be devastating and lead to closures

“Further cuts to Medicaid funding will create more economic chaos, because employers will not accept additional burdens for government responsibility."

But there is optimism surrounding the legislations' plan to revamp HSAs, HDHPs and direct primary care arrangements.

ICHRAs would also get rebranded and see changes the industry supports.

State bans from enforcing AI laws or regulations?

Included.

"This potential surge of contradictory and overlapping policy proposals would quash small business AI innovation, most of which poses minimal risk."

The Congressional Budget Office said this week the bill would trigger automatic Medicare cuts. Technically true, but unlikely to happen.

"I consider this a nothingburger," one analyst said.

Much of the focus is on Medicaid, but don't forget about the impact to the Affordable Care Act.

“Proportionally, that’s a much bigger enrollment and coverage loss than projected for Medicaid."

A spokesperson confirmed the decision to me this afternoon, following speculation and reporting from others news outlets that the service could soon be eliminated.

The story has a lot of interesting nuggets, including quotes from an interview with former HHS Secretary Tom Price.

I'm sincerely grateful to these employees for being willing to share their stories with me—on the record or anonymously—and opening up during a really tough week.

We obtained recordings of supervisors warning their employees they might have to work in the hallway because of a RTO mandate. Emails shared showed requirements to remove DEI language from websites and trainings, all while receiving a barrage of messages urging them to take a buyout offer.

Hello. I am a healthcare reporter covering the HHS firings. If you’d like to share your story (on or off the record), my email is [email protected] and I can be reached on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, at ntong.49

The ASA president got the sense the policy was going to be tested in the initial three states before implemented nationwide.

I spoke to the American Society of Anesthesiologists this afternoon to get their thoughts on the plan. A few hours later, an Elevance Health spokesperson confirmed the policy is now withdrawn.

Story is here:

@noahhurowitz.bsky.social has led the way on this story.

Dems increasingly fear the bill allows Trump to punish groups like Planned Parenthood (ppfa.bsky.social) as a "terrorist supporting" org.

“You're giving someone the power to crush dissenting groups without any real due process,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel to the ACLU.