Last week, the Medicare Rights Center submitted comments on a Request for Information (RFI) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This RFI asked for feedback on a host of potential changes that touted as ways to lower prescription drug costs for people with Medicare and Medicaid.

In May, the Trump Administration released a “blueprint” of various proposals in an attempt to bring down drug costs. Medicare Rights supports efforts to make prescription drugs more affordable. Many people with Medicare struggle to afford their medications, and Medicare affordability is one of the top issues on our national helpline every year. Something must be done to ensure the millions of people with Medicare have access to needed prescriptions.

After a Federal Judge invalidated the previously approved plan by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) to require very low income parents and caregivers to show that they are working or engaged in other activities in order to qualify for Medicaid coverage in Kentucky, CMS re-released the rule and another one governing Mississippi for additional comments.

To launch our new series, we begin with “Medicare: Strong and Built to Last.” This fact sheet gives some basic statistics about the Medicare program, including who uses it, why it’s important, and its financial footing.

Today, Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, participated in a Capitol Hill briefing on Tackling Prescription Drug Prices: An Examination of Proposed Medicare Part D Reforms. Hosted by the National Coalition on Health Care, the goal of this educational briefing was to shed light on proposed reforms to Medicare Part D, identify the trade-offs involved, and explore the impacts on Medicare beneficiaries.

This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released an issue brief analyzing the availability of, and enrollment in Medigaps across different states. One in four people in traditional Medicare had this private, supplemental health insurance in 2015. Medigaps help cover Medicare deductibles and cost-sharing, reduce the out-of-pocket burden associated with accessing care, and protect against high costs because of catastrophic illness or injury.

In January, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a Medicaid waiver in Kentucky that would allow the state to make participation in a work or “community engagement” program a condition for Medicaid eligibility. A group of advocates sued on behalf of Kentuckians who would be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, and last month a federal judge put Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirement on hold. His decision called into question CMS’s attention to vital details about the Kentucky Medicaid waiver, including whether the waiver violates one of the primary purposes of the Medicaid statute—to provide health coverage.

This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a new issue brief on Medicare spending. The brief analyzes the most recent historical and projected Medicare spending data published in the 2018 annual report of the Boards of Medicare Trustees and the 2018 Medicare baseline and projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In 2017, Medicare spending accounted for 15% of the federal budget, and for 20% of total national health spending in 2016. It also accounted for 29% of spending on retail sales of prescription drugs, 25% of spending on hospital care, and 23% of spending on physician services.

Last week, the Medicare Rights Center explained how the House majority’s budget plan for 2019 would fundamentally restructure Medicare and Medicaid, slashing more than $2.1 trillion from the programs over 10 years. Though this approach is not unexpected—as lawmakers promised to use deficits created by last year’s tax bill as an excuse to pursue such cuts—it is extremely troubling.

This week, the Health Policy Consensus Group—a consortium of think tanks and former and current lawmakers—put forward a new plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would end Medicaid expansion and eliminate the ACA’s robust consumer protections for individuals with preexisting conditions, adults over 50, and women. If this sounds familiar, it should. Last year saw several plans to end the ACA’s Medicaid funding and consumer protections, often couched in language promising states more “flexibility.” These proposals would have caused millions of Americans to lose access to critical services, pay more for care, or even lose health coverage entirely.

This week, House Republicans unveiled a 2019 budget proposal that would balance the federal budget in nine years—largely by significantly cutting and fundamentally restructuring Medicare and Medicaid. This approach is not unexpected. Lawmakers were clear that after passing a costly tax bill that drives up deficits, they would use these higher deficits to justify cuts to programs like Medicare. In the House budget resolution, they are keeping that promise: the budget would end Medicare and Medicaid as we know them.