The massive budget package passed by the House of Representatives Thursday includes provisions on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program that “could create additional administrative burdens for patients,” AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, noted in a May 20 letter to House leadership.

Such hurdles “in these two safety-net programs are a proven barrier to eligible individuals enrolling for coverage, especially given that of the estimated 25.3 million uninsured Americans in 2023, 6.3 million were eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled, often due to administrative barriers.”

In his letter, Dr. Madara wrote that physicians “know that Medicaid is a vital component of America’s health care infrastructure, providing health insurance coverage to millions of patients and serving as a critical safety net for children, pregnant and postpartum women, seniors, and people with disabilities and serious health conditions.”

He added that “Medicaid coverage is associated with improved long-term health, lower rates of mortality, better health outcomes, fewer hospitalizations, better educational outcomes, and greater financial security.” The AMA’s letter goes on to describe the federal-state program as “an indispensable source of coverage for maternal health services, covering over 40% of all births in the United States, including almost 50% of births in rural areas.”

The House budget bill’s provisions “may increase the risk of wrongful denials or disenrollments, disrupting patients’ access to care and potentially affecting the continuity of care physicians strive to provide,” Dr. Madara wrote. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 8.7 million people would lose Medicaid coverage under these provisions, and 7.6 million more would be uninsured within 10 years.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

The AMA strongly supports moves in Congress that would adjust Medicare physician payment to rise with the rate of practice-cost inflation while warning that Medicaid proposals in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s budget-reconciliation text would add administrative complexity and lead to coverage interruptions that especially affect Americans with low incomes and those living in rural areas.

In response to the budget-reconciliation text released Sunday night, AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, wrote in strong support of section 44304 of the committee’s recommendations, which “provides the first Medicare physician payment update that is permanently built into baseline Medicare rates since the passage of the Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) in 2015.” Such a change was recommended by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and would link Medicare physician payments to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI).

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang, which also addresses the impact of proposed Medicaid changes.