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Judge Orders RFK Jr’s HHS to Stop Sharing Medicaid Data With Immigration Officials

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A federal judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to stop providing access to Medicaid enrollees’ personal data, including their home addresses, to immigration officials.

District Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee, granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Homeland Security from using Medicaid data obtained from 20 states that filed a lawsuit to stop the data sharing.

The order, handed down Tuesday, blocks HHS from sharing data on Medicaid enrollees in these states with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of targeting migrants for deportation.

“Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents,” Chhabria wrote.

The judge wrote that while there is nothing “categorically unlawful” about DHS collecting data from other agencies for immigration enforcement purposes, ICE has had a policy against using Medicaid data for that reason for 12 years. (Read more from “Judge Orders RFK Jr’s HHS to Stop Sharing Medicaid Data With Immigration Officials” HERE)

Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Defunds Medicaid-Covered Transgender Surgery

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President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending budget, lovingly dubbed the “one big, beautiful, bill,” strips Medicaid’s funding for transgender surgeries — a move that will impact a large portion of such procedures if it passes the Senate.

The reconciliation budget, which narrowly passed the House of Representatives early Thursday morning in a 215-214-1 vote, would have initially prohibited Medicaid from covering “gender transition procedures” for children, until a late Wednesday amendment struck the words “minors” and “under 18 years of age” from that section, the Independent reported.

Gender transition treatments that would no longer be covered include puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries.

A 2023 study by gynecologists from Columbia University and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, revealed that a staggering 25 percent of so-called “gender-affirming” surgeries in the United States are covered by Medicaid.

Out of the 48,019 patients identified in the report who underwent such surgeries, over 12,000 were Medicaid recipients. (Read more from “Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Defunds Medicaid-Covered Transgender Surgery” HERE)

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Podcaster Gavin Newsom Forced to Borrow $3.44 Billion to Pay for Medicaid for Illegal Aliens

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The State of California must borrow $3.44 billion dollars to cover a shortfall in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medcaid program — a year after expanding it to offer free health care to illegal aliens.

As Breitbart News reported at the time: “Beginning January 1, 2024, illegal aliens residing in California will become eligible for taxpayer-funded health insurance — the first state in the nation to enact such a policy.”

Governor Gavin Newsom had boasted of the budget agreement that made such a dramatic offer possible: “With these new investments [sic], California will become the first state to achieve universal access to health care coverage,” he had Newsom said in a statement in June 2022.

But after a year, it is clear that the Golden State lacks the cash to follow through on that commitment.

As Politico notes:

California will need to borrow $3.44 billion to close a budget gap in the state’s Medicaid program, Newsom administration officials told lawmakers Wednesday in a letter obtained by POLITICO.

That’s the maximum amount California can borrow, and will only be enough to cover bills for Medi-Cal — the state’s Medicaid program — through the end of the month, Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer separately told POLITICO.

…

Originally, the state estimated it would cost around $3 billion per year to insure [undocumented immigrants]. But one year after the program has been fully implemented, it’s turning out to be more expensive than anticipated.

(Read more from “Podcaster Gavin Newsom Forced to Borrow $3.44 Billion to Pay for Medicaid for Illegal Aliens” HERE)

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‘Transparently Crooked’: Biden-Harris Admin Might Just Be Buying Votes With New Medicare Changes, Experts Say

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in September that it would be reducing certain Medicare prescription drug premiums in what experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation called a ploy to buy votes before the November election.

Enrollees in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit are slated to have lower average monthly premiums for their pharmaceutical drugs next year due to the Biden-Harris administration pouring billions into subsidies for insurers, with premiums set to fall $7.45 from $53.95 in 2024 to $46.50 in 2025, according to a CMS press release. The move by the Biden-Harris administration is a political bribe aimed at securing the votes of Americans aged 65 and over who have the highest voter turnout historically, experts told the DCNF.

“The $2,000 dollar cap [on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs] as well as other Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions were slated to triple the cost of Part D,” Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF. “If millions of senior citizens see their premiums triple, they’d go to the polls and vote out those responsible. The Biden administration wanted to avert that.”

Premiums were slated to rise in 2025, largely due to a $2,000 cap on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs enacted as part of provisions in President Joe Biden’s IRA that go into effect next year. To stave off the increase, the White House set up a “stabilization” demonstration program for 2025 that will offer Medicare Part D insurers $15 dollars a month per enrollee in exchange for keeping premiums roughly stable, an initiative that is estimated to cost taxpayers $5 billion in 2025. (Read more from “‘Transparently Crooked’: Biden-Harris Admin Might Just Be Buying Votes With New Medicare Changes, Experts Say” HERE)

Conservative State Will Bar Medicaid Coverage for Gender Reassignment Surgeries, Hormones

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Florida will prohibit Medicaid coverage for various gender reassignment measures such as surgeries, puberty blockers, hormones, hormone antagonists, and procedures that would change primary or secondary sex characteristics.

The rule, which marks a blow against radical leftist gender ideology, will go into effect later this month on August 21.

“Throughout this process ⁦@AHCA_FL [Florida Agency for Health Care Administration] has remained committed to following the evidence in the treatment of gender dysphoria, rather than the eminence of a medical society or association. Our focus will always be on paving the way for a healthier Florida,” tweeted Brock Juarez, communications director for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Media reports discussing the state’s move used the term “gender-affirming” to refer to the gender transition measures that will not be covered by Florida Medicaid. A Politico headline read, “Florida bans Medicaid from covering gender-affirming treatments,” while a Washington Post headline declared, “Florida to bar Medicaid coverage for those seeking gender-affirming care.”

“‘Gender affirming care’ is not standard medical terminology. It’s propaganda. The media should stop using left-wing talking points,” Juarez tweeted. (Read more from “Conservative State Will Bar Medicaid Coverage for Gender Reassignment Surgeries, Hormones” HERE)

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Improper Medicaid Payments Top $75B

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$75 billion.

That is not the cost of Medicaid. That is merely the cost of improper payments from the Medicaid program, accounting for roughly 20 percent of the total program tab, according Brian Blaze and Aaron Yelowitz writing in the Wall Street Journal. Prior to the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid incentivizing states to flood their rolls with Medicaid recipients, the improper payments accounted for roughly six percent. Now, just the official fraud and waste of Medicaid amount to more than the entire cost of the food stamp program!

In many ways, the entire Medicaid program is one big fraud perpetrated on the American taxpayer, designed to serve as a cash cow for the insurance cartel and major hospital and health care administrator networks. When Republicans cowered from repealing Obamacare or at least reforming Medicaid in 2017, it wasn’t in response to a million-man march of poor people. It was in response to the health care mafia, which is the biggest lobbyist at both the state and federal levels.

Many people forget that most of Medicare and Medicaid are not purely “public.” These programs are managed by “private” companies that line their pockets with unconstitutional government interventions and then use their status in the market to demand more subsidies lest they threaten higher prices. In many respects, our system of venture socialism is worse than single-payer, because it combines socialism with some of the motives of capitalism, while government shields the private entities from market forces. It guarantees them an endless flow of public funds, consumer mandates, and regulatory favors (no antitrust laws, but onerous coverage burdens to keep out new competitors) to remove any need to innovate and compete.

As of 2016, roughly 73 percent of all Medicaid enrollees were being managed by the insurance cartel and health care providers, aka managed care organizations (MCOs). That trend has exploded since Obamacare and is likely even higher today. States like Kentucky, California, and West Virginia, which have particular problems with Medicaid eligibility fraud, have over 80 percent of their enrollment population run by MCOs.

Now you can appreciate why the industry loved Obamacare so much and went ballistic when it was feared that Republicans would repeal it. 84 percent of all coverage increases under Obamacare were from Medicaid. When millions of people were thrown onto Medicaid, it flooded the health care industry with free money.

As Blaze and Yelowitz explain in their WSJ piece:

Higher overall Medicaid payments came with benefits for state-level interest groups that profited from maximizing enrollment. Insurers have reaped substantial profits from the Medicaid expansion—owing in part to large government payments for people who are enrolled but don’t go to the doctor or use much medical care.

Since states view the Medicaid expansion as a cash cow, they have generally failed to conduct proper eligibility reviews. One federal audit by the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general found that more than half of sampled enrollees in California’s Medicaid program were either improperly enrolled or potentially improperly enrolled. Whether out of greed or incompetence, many states neglect to obtain proper documentation and fail to verify income eligibility and citizenship.

This is why since the passage of Obamacare we’ve seen the endless construction in urban hospitals and the prolific mergers and acquisitions across the entire spectrum of insurance and health care administration. Isn’t there a better way to take care of people who are truly poor without creating artificial monopolies, degrading health care, and inducing $75 billion in annual fraud?

It’s very simple. Cut out the middleman. In 2017, I proposed a simple idea to restructure Medicaid in the mold of food stamps, whereby qualified low-income families would be given regulated health care accounts. Rather than having $600 billion annually pumped into the cartel monopoly, the money would go directly into these accounts to purchase any mix of insurance, out-of-pocket, concierge medicine, or health-sharing ministries of their choice.

The best way to give a handout is to actually give a handout, without enriching cronies in the “private” sector. The true reason why we have such political difficulty reforming these destructive programs is not due to a groundswell of lobbying from the poor but because of those who become wealthy by administering this program (or riding the wave of market distortions it leaves in its wake).

By empowering every individual, including those with lower means, to take charge of his own health care, we will finally prevent the insurance cartel and the lobbyists from impeding medical progress in this country. (For more from the author of “Improper Medicaid Payments Top $75B” please click HERE)

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DC Judge Mandates a Right to Medicaid for Able-Bodied Adults Without Work Requirements

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Republicans have failed to promote a single conservative fiscal reform to even tweak the growing welfare state, despite their promise to fight for welfare work requirements. But at least Republicans at a state level are promoting conservatism, right? Well, not if the courts are crowned king of the republic.

Courts have become the final arbiter of cultural issues and now even border and national security issues. Thus, it was only a matter of time before they ventured into fiscal/economic issues. Recently, several states have been conditioning Medicaid eligibility upon work requirements. Arkansas, Kentucky, and New Hampshire got a waiver from HHS to require that non-disabled beneficiaries under 65 show that they have completed a certain number of hours of work requirements or similar community engagement. The issue is popular with the public, but now, one man, Judge James Boasberg, has taken it upon himself to prevent every state throughout the country from enacting this commonsense reform.

Yesterday, D.C. District Court Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, followed up on his injunctions earlier this year on HHS’ approval of Arkansas’ and Kentucky’s plan for work requirements, doing the same to HHS approval for New Hampshire. Earlier this year, New Hampshire adopted Granite Advantage Community Engagement, a program to require able-bodied adults to document 100 hours of work, schooling, job training, or volunteer work in order to apply for Medicaid.

“On their face, these work requirements are more exacting than Kentucky’s and Arkansas’s,” Boasberg wrote in his smug injunction order. “Yet the agency has still not contended with the possibility that the project would cause a substantial number of persons to lose their health-care coverage.”

But who says it is the role of this one judge to ascertain the purpose of the Medicaid program? As lawyers for Arkansas said in response to his ruling on their state’s rule in March, the “ultimate conclusion that Medicaid’s ‘core purpose’ is the mere perpetuation of coverage with no specific goal in mind conflicts with commonsense, text, and precedent.”

Boasberg deems HHS Secretary Azar’s waiver to New Hampshire “arbitrary and capricious,” even though both HHS and the state offered a thorough analysis of why work requirements would better preserve the Medicaid program in the state. Section 1115 of Obamacare allows the secretary to “waive compliance with any of the requirements” in that section in terms of expanding Medicaid to adults when experimenting with such programs to test better outcomes. How can one judge overrule what is inherently political discretion and disagreement over policy, not law?

These judges continue to forget that the role of a court is a shield, not a sword. Courts have “neither force nor will,” meaning they can’t legislate and they can’t appropriate benefits. That is the job of the other branches. They can grant relief to a plaintiff – a shield from punitive action taken against the plaintiff, such as a fine or imprisonment. There is no right to Medicaid, however, and even if a court were correct in its reading of a law, the executive branch is not bound by its decision to award and appropriate funds.

As Clarence Thomas articulated in the gay marriage case, “In the American legal tradition, liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement.” Yet now that judges have created a right for foreigners to immigrate and sue us in court, it’s not a stretch at all for them to create a right for Americans to be entitled to welfare. Absent such an implied right, the judge has no power to simply make up the purpose of Medicaid and decide such fundamentally political questions.

Not only have judges now been “appropriating” taxpayer funding for welfare and also redefining human sexuality, they have been doing both together. Last July, U.S. District Judge William Conley ordered Wisconsin taxpayers to fund sex-change “surgeries” for two individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria. One of them asked that her breasts be removed in her attempt at manhood. The judge ruled that Medicaid must cover it. What happened to the Hippocratic Oath? How is it that homosexual conversion therapy is illegal in so many states, yet courts can mandate the most gruesome forms of mutilation? In Conley’s estimation, the state’s outrageous understanding of, you know, basic biology “feeds into sex stereotypes by requiring all transgender individuals receiving Wisconsin Medicaid to keep genitalia and other prominent sex characteristics consistent with their natal sex no matter how painful and disorienting it may prove for some.”

These are the same courts that are saying Planned Parenthood, a private abortion and baby harvesting group, has a right to Medicaid funds.

Is there a single political issue that is a bridge too far for judicial intervention, or will the other branches of government and the states allow single district judges to accomplish more fiscal, social, and border policy than any party could hope to pass in a generation?

For far too long, much of the right-leaning libertarian legal movement only cared about economic issues, but not civilization and social transformation from the courts. They have declined to fight judicial supremacy head-on. But now judicial tyranny is threatening to engulf any issue anyone in the right-of-center coalition cares about.

It’s also important to note that the federal court in D.C. is the most important federal regional court in the country because it hears all of the political cases. Liberals will maintain an insurmountable majority, even if Trump serves for two terms. Democrat appointees enjoy an 11-4 majority on the district court and a 7-4 majority on the appeals court among active judges.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia did grant HHS’ request for an expedited appeal in April on the Arkansas case, but given the orientation of the court, the odds are stacked against the state, and oral arguments don’t even begin until October.

Conservatives need to think long and hard about the purpose of fighting in politics if we are going to cede this much power to single district judges. What we fight for over the course of decades can be undone by the false notion of a judicial veto by a single judge at any moment, even when the issue does not touch a fundamental right in any way. (For more from the author of “DC Judge Mandates a Right to Medicaid for Able-Bodied Adults Without Work Requirements” please click HERE)

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Ocasio-Cortez Has a Ridiculous Reason for Wanting ‘Medicaid for All’

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is fun. No, I mean that in all sincerity; she’s a fun candidate. She’s now one of the faces of the emerging left wing of the Democratic Party. Some have even called her the future of the Democratic Party. Maybe they should slow their roll on her, but hey—a Democratic implosion of rising talent is always a fun show to watch. She’s feisty. She has her moments, but when it comes to the policy discussion for her television hits, she veers into rocky shoals.

Ocasio-Cortez is clueless on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, playing whack-a-mole concerning whether there should be a two-state solution. Don’t expect anything rational from here on out. Three days after her interview on PBS’ Firing Line, in which she voiced her support for a two-state solution, she moved away from that position. She recently attended a conference with anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, so that’s all you need to know where she’ll probably land. The far left is viciously anti-Israel. You have to be in order to call yourself a proud left-winger.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo had her on his show, where she proved once again that she has no clue what she’s talking about concerning economic policy. Ocasio-Corez thinks the military got a $700 billion increase, wrote a $2 trillion check for the Trump tax cuts, and the Medicare for All initiative isn’t bad because it would reduce the costs of funerals. Yeah, no one will die under a single payer system. Hey, not dying—sounds great on paper. Concerning application, you’d have to be on crack cocaine to think this would ever be cost-effective. It’s not. It has a $30+ trillion price tag. The three-decade price tag for the Left’s goodie bag—free college, Medicare for all, etc.—lands in the neighborhood of…$218 trillion. It’s a pipe dream. The Washington Free Beacon made the good point that even in Bernie Sanders’ home state, Vermont, they ditched a single-payer system because it was too expensive. Even deep-blue California hasn’t passed single-payer due to similar budgetary constraints. . .

CNN host Chris Cuomo brought up the “sticker shock” of a single-payer system to his guest, noting such a proposal didn’t even work in a blue state like Vermont. Ocasio-Cortez, who burst onto the national scene when she upset Rep. Joe Crowley (D., N.Y.) in the Democratic primary in June, deflected by saying the current system causes sticker shock.

“We’re paying for this system,” she said. “Americans have the sticker shock of health care as it is, and what we’re also not talking about is why aren’t we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who died because they can’t afford access to health care? That is part of the cost of our system.”

(Read more from “Ocasio-Cortez Has a Ridiculous Reason for Wanting ‘Medicaid for All'” HERE)

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Enough About Medicaid. What About the Rest of Us?

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There is more to life than Medicaid.

D.C. conservatives say it’s the best Medicaid reform bill ever. Democrats and progressive Republicans say it’s a crippling cut to the poor and immoral. What nobody is talking about is the rest of the health care and health insurance market and how it is immoral to ensure than no middle-income family can live with dignity without unsustainable taxpayer support. Whatever we do or don’t do with Medicaid, why do we need to destroy the rest of the market for the debate over Medicaid? Why is nobody talking about healing the private market first?

Obamacare’s actuarily insolvent regulations and market-distorting exchanges and subsidies, built on top of existing government-sponsored distortions, destroyed health insurance in America and made health care unaffordable for all but the wealthy. That is a fact. That premiums have tripled in only the fourth year of implementation and that they will skyrocket thanks to only one or two insurers having a monopoly in most of the country is a reality before our eyes, not just a projection score from CBO. Why is nobody discussing ways to solve the private market crisis — repeal of Obamacare and enactment of free-market, supply-side health care reforms?

The supposed rationale for this arson of our health care system was the pursuit of universal coverage. But the reality is that 84 percent of all coverage increases came from Medicaid, not from the private insurance market. Even much of the remaining 16 percent increase since 2011 came from 1) Young individuals who never wanted insurance but were coerced into it by the individual mandate; 2) More people getting employer plans thanks to the recovering job market. Unemployment decreased from 10 percent to 4.3 percent; and 3) Individuals who are getting lavish subsidies but only need the subsidies because the Obamacare regulations made insurance unaffordable without them. Private insurance coverage for everyone older than 26 has actually decreased since enactment of Obamacare.

The remaining middle-income Americans and small business owners, thus, must suffer from crushing costs the size of another mortgage … for what?

Why did we have to destroy the entire market just to expand Medicaid?

A true compromise that will expose the duplicity of progressive Republicans and Democrats

To that end, here is my proposal to solve the problem and assuage the concerns of progressive Republicans while disarming the talking point of the left.

You want Medicaid expansion? Here, go have it. We won’t touch it at all. Go enjoy it. It’s all funny money anyway, and we have long since crossed the point of no return with the debt. As late as 1987, we spent just $27 billion on Medicaid; as late as 2008, we spent $200 billion on it; and now we spend close to $400 billion. The debate between the two sides is over whether we will spend $500 billion or $620 billion on Medicaid by 2026, both lowball estimates unless we actually solve the core problem and open up a free market in health care and health insurance. Plus, either way, the proposed “cuts” to Medicaid under the GOP plan will never occur, cannot occur given the dynamics of the rest of the bill, and are merely a talking point to get conservatives on board with maintaining the core of Obamacare.
Perforce, if this is the big reason why RINOs are having tantrums, let’s cede this issue, which will be ceded anyway, and demand repeal of the more critical elements of Obamacare in return.

In addition, let’s throw $200-$300 billion over 10 years at a federal high-risk pool that is structured like the “Maine model” to ensure insurers can’t bid up the price and make it an open-ended entitlement, but will deal with the remaining chronically ill who are not covered by other programs. This is more than enough to deal with the remaining people who aren’t on Medicare, Medicaid+expansion, SCHIP, VA, TRICARE, state programs, and existing state and federal programs for pre-existing conditions. Yes, we already spend $1.6 trillion on health care. Now, enough is enough.

Again, this is not my ideal plan, but we are going to spend this money anyway under every plan anyway. (For more from the author of “Enough About Medicaid. What About the Rest of Us?” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Concerns About the Pending Expansion of Medicaid in Alaska [+video]

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Last Thursday Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced that he would use his executive authority to expand Alaska’s state Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act. Walker’s proposal would extend Medicaid eligibility to all Alaskans earning less than 133 percent of the poverty line. Walker reported that he sent a letter to the Alaska legislature’s Budget and Audit Committee, giving legislators the required 45-day notice of his plan. The committee can make recommendations, but Walker said he has legal authority to move forward without the legislature’s approval.

This action by Governor Walker will likely prompt both a political and a legal battle. Earlier this summer, the Republican-controlled state legislature rejected Walker’s plan to expand Medicaid. They even included language in the state’s budget prohibiting any such move. However, opinions from both the Alaska Department of Law and from the legislature’s legal counsel declared that the effort to block Walker likely doesn’t adhere to the state’s constitution.

Additionally, Governor Walker has defended his decision. He stated that previous Alaska governors have used the same authority to accept money from sources outside the state’s general fund on seven prior occasions. Also, governors in other states, including Kentucky and Ohio, also have adopted the Medicaid expansion without new legislation.

Regardless, pro-lifers have strong grounds to oppose Medicaid expansion in Alaska. As I point out in a recently released Charlotte Lozier Institute policy analysis, Governor Walker’s proposal would place anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 women of childbearing age directly on to a Medicaid program which covers elective abortions. Alaska is one of 17 states that publicly fund abortions through their state Medicaid program. Additionally, over 40 percent of all abortions performed in Alaska are paid for by Medicaid. Putting more women of childbearing age onto a Medicaid plan which covers abortion – and funds a high percentage of abortion in Alaska — will almost certainly increase Alaska’s abortion rate.

Other implications of Medicaid expansion are of concern. Medicaid expansion would also induce some women who are on exchange plans which do not cover abortion to transfer to a Medicaid plan which does cover abortion. Finally, it would increase taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and a provider of a significant number of abortions in Alaska. Overall, the Alaska state legislature should be commended for rejecting efforts to expand Medicaid this summer. Any efforts to delay or block Governor Walker’s proposal merits public support. (Published with permission from the author, “Pro-Life Concerns About the Pending Expansion of Medicaid in Alaska”, originally appeared HERE)

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