Monthly Archives: February 2020

UPDATED 2.25.2020 to reflect decision in Wolf v. Cook County, Illinois

Last summer, we wrote about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) public charge rule.  As a reminder, that rule added some definition to the grounds of inadmissibility to the United States because of the likelihood that an applicant for an immigration benefit – such as a green card applicant or an individual seeking a visa to enter the United States – is likely to become a “public charge.”  We’re interested in that here at the Medicaid and the Law Blog because one of the factors that the final regulation would consider is whether the applicant has ever used Medicaid in the past or was likely to do so.… More

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) suffered a big loss in court last week.  The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that blocked CMS from implementing one of the hallmarks of the Trump Administration’s efforts to restructure the Medicaid program.  We first wrote about the agency’s attempts to require some Medicaid recipients to participate in community engagement activities back in 2018. … More

On January 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its long awaited and highly anticipated State Medicaid Director Letter (SMD Letter) announcing the “Healthy Adult Opportunity” (HAO) initiative that will allow states to carry out demonstrations to implement either an aggregate or per-capita cap financing model for certain Medicaid populations.  We’ve previously previewed and highlighted some of the key expectations for this long-awaited guidance.… More