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The United States played a leading role in the international response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, providing the most financial support, mobilizing U.S. staff across the federal government, and jumpstarting international efforts to strengthen global health security.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations approved the FY 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPs) appropriations bill, accompanying report, and amendments on July 20, 2023. The SFOPs bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
A new report from KFF and The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reveals that donor governments disbursed US$8.2 billion in 2022 to combat HIV in low- and middle-income countries, returning to 2020 funding levels and still below the high-water mark of $8.6 billion in 2014.
A KFF analysis shows that gross total Medicare spending on Ozempic and other similar drugs has increased dramatically in recent years – even though Medicare is explicitly prohibited by law from covering the drugs for obesity. That’s because Medicare now covers the drugs, known as GLP-1s, for other medically accepted indications, including to treat diabetes.
This data note looks at Medicaid spending per full-benefit enrollee, examining variation by state and by eligibility group, as well as variation within a given state and eligibility group.
Donor government funding to support HIV efforts in low- and middle-income countries decreased by US$511 million from US$7.5 billion in 2015 to US$7 billion in 2016, finds a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Both the Senate's Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA) and the House's American Health Care Act (AHCA) go beyond repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to make fundamental changes to Medicaid by setting a limit on federal funding through a per capita cap or block grant. The BCRA also includes additional changes that would further reduce federal spending for states with high per enrollee spending, limit state financing mechanisms, allow states to impose work requirements, and make other eligibility changes. Across the board, these changes would have significant implications for the 74 million people covered by the Medicaid program and for states that jointly finance and administer the program. This brief explains the five most significant Medicaid changes in the BCRA as well as additional Medicaid changes that could have major implications for states, providers, and beneficiaries.
This issue brief raises three key questions for consideration if using Medicaid to wrap around private coverage is going to be considered as an alternative to the ACA's Medicaid expansion under the BCRA. We draw on existing information about state Medicaid premium assistance programs to date, the administrative complexity involved, and the financing implications of premium assistance programs.
To financially qualify for Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS), an individual must have a low income and limited assets. In response to concerns that these rules could leave a spouse without adequate means of support when a married individual needs LTSS, Congress created the spousal impoverishment rules in 1988. Originally, these rules required states to protect a portion of a married couple’s income and assets to provide for the “community spouse’s” living expenses when determining nursing home financial eligibility, but gave states the option to apply the rules to home and community-based services (HCBS) waivers.
Section 2404 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) changed the spousal impoverishment rules to treat Medicaid HCBS and institutional care equally from January 2014 through December 2018. Congress subsequently extended Section 2404 through December 2019. This issue brief answers key questions about the spousal impoverishment rules, presents 50-state data from a 2018 Kaiser Family Foundation survey about state policies and future plans in this area, and considers the implications if Congress does not further extend Section 2404.
Two initiatives that for years have helped shift Medicaid enrollees away from nursing homes in favor of long-term care at home and in the community face year-end deadlines that could undercut that trend, according to two new KFF issue briefs.
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