{"id":2002,"date":"2023-11-16T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2002"},"modified":"2023-11-16T22:02:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T22:02:11","slug":"congress-kicks-the-budget-can-down-the-road-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2002","title":{"rendered":"Congress Kicks the (Budget) Can Down the Road. Again."},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-people block--people\">\n<h3 class=\"people-title\">\n\t\tThe Host\t<\/h3>\n<div class=\"people-card-container single\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-people-card block--people-card\">\n<div class=\"author-image-container\">\n\t\t\t<img srcset=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg 600w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=150,150 150w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=500,500 500w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=480,480 480w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=100,100 100w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=120,120 120w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=170,170 170w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=300,300 300w, https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Rovner-Julie2022_sq.jpg?resize=315,315 315w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 150px\"\/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Congress narrowly avoided a federal government shutdown for the second time in as many months, as House Democrats provided the needed votes for new House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to avoid his first legislative catastrophe of his brief tenure. But funding the federal government won\u2019t get any easier when the latest temporary patches expire in early 2024. It seems House Republicans have not yet accepted that they cannot accomplish the steep spending cuts they want as long as the Senate and the White House are controlled by Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a pair of investigations unveiled this week underscored the difficulty of obtaining needed long-term care for seniors. One, from KFF Health News and The New York Times, chronicles the financial toll on families for people who need help for activities of daily living. The other, from Stat, details how some insurance companies are using artificial intelligence algorithms to deny needed rehabilitation care for Medicare patients.<\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s panelists are Julie Rovner of KFF Health News, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine, and Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico.<\/p>\n<p>Among the takeaways from this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Congress passed a two-part continuing resolution this week that will prevent the federal government from shutting down when the current CR expires Nov. 18 at 12:01 a.m. The new measure extends some current spending levels, including funding for the FDA, through Jan. 19. The rest of federal agencies, including most of the Department of Health and Human Services, are extended to Feb. 2.<\/li>\n<li>House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he wants to use the next two months to finish work on individual appropriations bills, none of which have passed both the House and Senate so far. The problem: They would deeply cut many popular federal programs. They also are full of changes to abortion restrictions and transgender policies, highlighting the split between the GOP caucus\u2019 far-right wing and its more moderate members.<\/li>\n<li>In the wake of abortion rights successes in passing abortion rights ballot initiatives, new efforts are taking shape in Ohio and Michigan among state lawmakers who are arguing that when <em>Dobbs<\/em> turned this decision back to states, it meant to the state legislatures \u2014 not to the courts or voters. Most experts agree the approach is unlikely to prevail. Still, it highlights continuing efforts to change the rules surrounding this polarized issue.<\/li>\n<li>Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) \u2014 who was the only remaining Republican presidential candidate pushing for a national, 15-week abortion ban \u2014 suspended his campaign last week. He, along with former Vice President Mike Pence, who bowed out of the race at the end of October, were the field\u2019s strongest anti-abortion candidates. This seems to suggest that the 15-week ban is not drawing voter support, even among Republicans. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, the GOP\u2019s front-runner by miles, continues to be willing to play both sides of the abortion debate.<\/li>\n<li>Amid increasing concern about the use of artificial intelligence in health care, a California class-action lawsuit charges that UnitedHealth Group is using algorithms to deny rehabilitation care to enrollees in its Medicare Advantage program. The suit comes in the wake of an investigation by Stat into insurer requirements that case managers hew to the AI estimates of how long the company would pay for rehabilitation care, regardless of the patient\u2019s actual medical situation.<\/li>\n<li>More than 10 million people have lost Medicaid coverage since states began reviewing eligibility earlier in the year. Advocates for Medicaid patients worry that the Biden administration has not done enough to ensure that people who are still eligible for the program \u2014 particularly children \u2014 are not mistakenly terminated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"wp-block block--newsletter  \" data-type=\"kaiser-health-news\/newsletter\" data-align=\"center\" style=\"\">\n<h4 class=\"newsletter__title\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/email\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tEmail Sign-Up\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t<\/h4>\n<p class=\"newsletter__description\">\n\t\tSubscribe to KFF Health News&#8217; free Morning Briefing.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Plus, for \u201cextra credit,\u201d the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julie Rovner:<\/strong> KFF Health News\u2019 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/lawmakers-florida-texas-covid-vaccine-promotion-ban\/\">How Lawmakers in Texas and Florida Undermine Covid Vaccination Efforts<\/a>,\u201d by Amy Maxmen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alice Miranda Ollstein:<\/strong> The New York Times\u2019 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/11\/11\/us\/arizona-native-american-addiction.html?\">They Wanted to Get Sober. They Got a Nightmare Instead<\/a>,\u201d by Jack Healy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rachel Cohrs:<\/strong> Stat\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2023\/11\/14\/unitedhealth-algorithm-medicare-advantage-investigation\/\">UnitedHealth Pushed Employees to Follow an Algorithm to Cut Off Medicare Patients\u2019 Rehab Care<\/a>,\u201d by Casey Ross and Bob Herman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joanne Kenen:<\/strong> ProPublica\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/mississippi-jails-where-people-await-psychiatric-treatment-must-meet-standards-just-one-does\">Mississippi Jailed More Than 800 People Awaiting Psychiatric Treatment in a Year. Just One Jail Meets State Standards<\/a>,\u201d by Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today.<\/p>\n<p>Also mentioned in this week\u2019s episode:<\/p>\n<p>KFF Health News\u2019 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/article\/dying-broke-facing-financial-ruin-as-costs-soar-for-elder-care\/\">Facing Financial Ruin as Costs Soar for Elder Care<\/a>,\u201d by Reed Abelson, The New York Times, and Jordan Rau.<\/p>\n<p>JAMA Internal Medicine\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamainternalmedicine\/fullarticle\/2807617\">Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the COVID-19 Pandemic<\/a>,\u201d by Jacob Wallace, et al.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><em>To hear all our podcasts,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/news\/tag\/podcast\/\"><u>click here<\/u><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And subscribe to KFF Health News\u2019 \u201cWhat the Health?\u201d on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/32EdsB662C3oyIrqLMmBXI?si=TQhRjzzLTgWtK3crfbOFtA\"><u>Spotify<\/u><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/what-the-health\/id1253607372?mt=2\"><u>Apple Podcasts<\/u><\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/play.pocketcasts.com\/web\/podcasts\/a379e280-3f57-0135-9028-63f4b61a9224\"><u>Pocket Casts<\/u><\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n<section class=\"block--category-tag-list \">\n<div class=\"category-tag-list__content-wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"block--category-tag-list__title\">\n\t\t\t\tRelated Topics\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a class=\"category-tag-list__contact-link\" href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/contact-us\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tContact Us\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a class=\"category-tag-list__tip-link\" href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/tips\/\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tSubmit a Story Tip\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Host Congress narrowly avoided a federal government shutdown for the second time in as many months, as House Democrats provided the needed votes for new House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to avoid his first legislative catastrophe of his brief tenure. But funding the federal government won\u2019t get any easier when the latest temporary patches [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}