(Photo courtesy HealthCare.gov)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has adopted new provisions to lower maximum out-of-pocket costs by $400 in the federal health insurance marketplaces in 2022.
The payment notice finalizes a maximum annual limitation on cost-sharing in the ACA market that is $400 below what CMS proposed in November 2020.
CMS filed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2022 and Pharmacy Benefit Manager Standards today, April 30, that is scheduled to be published on May 5.
This is the second payment notice of the year, since CMS announced it would be finalizing the payment notice in multiple phases. The first 2022 payment notice final rule was released in January 2021.
By Craig Shirley | April 30, 2021 | 12:37pm EDT
Featured is Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. (Photo credit: Earl Gibson III/Getty Images)
Margaret Thatcher once famously said, “Beware the Nanny State. The state that takes too much from you in order to do too much for you.”
Fake milestones are important to some people, especially when one has to keep up the image of productivity.
If this weren’t the case, then perhaps we wouldn’t be hearing about the latest bit of tomfoolery to come out of the federal government. President Biden has reached the 100 day milestone of his first term and to mark the occasion, his government is going after menthol cigarettes.
President
Joe Biden is reportedly planning to ban menthol cigarettes in an effort to save Black Americans from the tobacco industry, but the ACLU says the move could have major “racial justice implications.”
Per SandraRose, a recent study showed that 85% of Black people smoke menthol cigarettes compared to 29% of white people.
“A menthol cigarette ban would disproportionately impact communities of color, result in criminalization of the market, and exacerbate mass incarceration,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
“Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties, which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction,” the letter stated. “A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement.”
With its primary focus the COVID-19 pandemic and pressing economic issues, the White House has unfortunately pushed the drug crisis to the sidelines although it significantly worsened last year amid the loneliness and despair of social isolation and the curtailment of services for those struggling with substance abuse. Across the country, fatalities mounted as drug use surged and the number of overdose victims without access to adequate help skyrocketed. In San Francisco, twice as many people died in 2020 from drug overdose as from coronavirus.
As city and state officials and treatment providers continue grappling with the crisis, what’s really needed is strong federal leadership in a comprehensive national policy approach with a massive boost in funding on the scale of the COVID response. This
Hes smiling while he steamrolls. Thats the way former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean recently summed up the governing strategy of the Biden.