April 30: House Hearing on Medicaid Access and Integrity

On April 30, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid and parts of Medicare (shared with the House Ways and Means Committee), is having a Subcommittee on Health hearing, "Legislative Proposals to Increase Medicaid Access and Improve Program Integrity." Dan Tsai, Deputy Administrator and Director of Center for Medicaid and CHIP services at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will be the witness at the hearing. A number of bills supported by LeadingAge will be discussed at the hearing:

• R. 8114, sponsored by Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL), would prevent the implementation of the payment adequacy provisions of the recently finalized Medicaid Access Rule, aka the "80/20" passthrough provision. The bill would prevent only that component of the rule from going into effect. LeadingAge and members of Congress support much of the rest of the rule's provisions.
• R. 8106, sponsored by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ), would remove the requirement that individuals must meet an institutional level of care to receive home and community based services through 1915c waiver authority. LeadingAge believes, if passed, this change could allow states to better target HCBS services and give members opportunities to serve new populations under the Medicaid program.
• R. 7513, sponsored by Representative Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), would prohibit HHS from implementing the federal nursing home minimum staffing rule.
• R. 3227, sponsored by Representative Ron Estes (R-KS), would address the two-year "CNA training lockout" that is contributing to the nursing home staffing crisis.
• R. 468, sponsored by Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY), would reinstate the flexibilities of CMS's Temporary Nurse Aide (TNA) waiver that expired at the end of the COVID Public Health Emergency (PHE).