Health Insurance

Republican states trying to ban abortion expand health benefits for new mothers | Abortion

June 24, 2022 Billie S. Dickenson

A number of Republican-led states that are moving to ban abortion are, at the same time, extending health insurance benefits to new mothers, professing to support “women in crisis”.

As the US supreme court prepares to rule on national abortion rights, many Republican states are seeking severe abortion bans that would force many women to carry pregnancies to term, likely worsening the US maternal mortality crisis.

Some of those same lawmakers are now passing bills that extend Medicaid benefits to low-income mothers, typically for one year after they give birth rather than the current two months.

Arizona, Florida, Tennessee and Texas have all extended health benefits for low-income mothers in recent months, and Alabama and Georgia have both moved to implement such extensions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. All have also sought to impose severe abortion restrictions or bans.

Although expanding pregnancy-related health coverage is “a win

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Links: Mark Shields’ death; universal health insurance; free speech

June 23, 2022 Billie S. Dickenson

Political columnist Mark Shields died last week. There have been many tributes, all of which focused not only on his sharp commentary but also on what a decent person he was, and the fact that he was interested in, not appalled by, encounters with people who saw the world through different lenses from the ones he used. That is to say, he was an intellectual liberal as well as a political one. Two years ago, when he retired, his sparring partner on PBS’s “NewsHour,” David Brooks, wrote a lovely encomium.

There is nothing liberal about billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel, whom The Washington Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin profiled in Sunday’s June 19 paper. I knew some but not all of this, and was especially intrigued by the title of a biography of Thiel: The Contrarian. Huh? There is nothing contrarian about this ideologue. That is what is so frightening about

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Millions could lose health coverage if premium subsidies expire later this year, officials say

June 23, 2022 Billie S. Dickenson

Absent Congressional action, many consumers will see health-coverage costs skyrocket next year, Biden administration officials warned Wednesday. 

The American Rescue Plan, signed into law in March 2021, temporarily expanded premium tax credits available to consumers signing up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Those expanded tax credits are set to expire at the end of this year, and extending them would require Congressional legislation. 

“Time is of the essence,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. As this fall’s open enrollment for 2023 marketplace coverage draws near, “we want to make sure that people know the subsidies will be in place,” she said. 

A record 14.5 million people signed up for coverage through the marketplaces during the open enrollment period that ended in January. The average monthly 2022 premium for HealthCare.gov enrollees was $111. Without the

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