Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek said Friday that he is consulting with agency lawyers and the Justice Department as he threatens to shut down the agency in response to a court ruling blocking Elon Musk’s team from accessing sensitive taxpayer data.
Acting Social Security head consults with Justice Dept. on whether to close agency (archived)
Tag: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
DOGE Sets Its Sights on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
The Republican record on Social Security: Getting worse all the time
Related:
Social Security at Risk? The Impact of Trump and Musk’s Reforms
Cutting Social Security Disability Benefits Can Backfire Horribly
FAIRNESS OF REAGAN’S CUTOFFS OF DISABILITY AID QUESTIONED
The US Treasury Claimed DOGE Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did
Elon Musk’s DOGE Allies Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems For Fraud
Elon Musk’s DOGE Allies Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems For Fraud
Representatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where they have gotten access to key payment and contracting systems, according to people familiar with the matter.
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CMS in particular is a highly politically and economically sensitive agency. It is the nerve center of much of the nation’s complex healthcare economy, with outlays of about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2024, or about 22% of the federal total. With around 6,710 employees, it oversees Medicare, the health coverage program for older and disabled Americans and Medicaid, for lower-income enrollees, among other areas. Many veteran CMS staffers have worked there for decades.
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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the high-profile physician and former television host, has been nominated to lead CMS, but hasn’t yet been confirmed by the Senate. Several CMS officials who are expected to work under Oz have already taken over at the agency.
Elon Musk’s DOGE Allies Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems For Fraud
Related:
‘It’s a Coup’: Musk’s DOGE Granted Access to Treasury System That Pays Out Social Security
A study linking popular weight loss drug to suicide risk again raises long-standing safety questions
Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.
People taking semaglutide, the popular medication for diabetes and weight loss, are more likely to report having thoughts of suicide compared with those taking other drugs, according to a new study of an international drug safety database. But the finding is the latest see-saw of scientific evidence on the risk of depression and suicide tied to the popular medications — and critics say evidence that the drugs cause problems with mood is limited.
A study linking popular weight loss drug to suicide risk again raises long-standing safety questions
Related:
Ian Douglas, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine:
I am an epidemiologist, currently funded by GlaxoSmithKline. I initially studied physiology at BSc and PhD level in Manchester. Since then, I spent several years at the UK Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and in the pharmaceutical industry investigating adverse effects of drugs – both in clinical trials and post-marketing. I completed the MSc in epidemiology at LSHTM in 2005.
Previously:
Medicare to cover obesity drugs, but not for weight loss
Wegovy, Rybelsus, and Ozempic, are the different brand names for Semaglutide. They have a black box warning for Medullary thyroid cancer.* 🤦🏼♀️
Related:
Everything We Learned From Oprah’s Weight Loss Special
Using Mounjaro may increase your risk of developing thyroid cancer.
Everything We Learned From Oprah’s Weight Loss Special
Everything We Learned From Oprah’s Weight Loss Special
Related:
Using Mounjaro may increase your risk of developing thyroid cancer.
Medicare to cover obesity drugs, but not for weight loss
Medicare to cover obesity drugs, but not for weight loss
“CMS has issued guidance to Medicare Part D plans stating that anti-obesity medications (AOMs) that receive FDA approval for an additional medically accepted indication can be considered a Part D drug for that specific use,” the spokesperson added, specifying that drugs that are FDA-approved for only weight loss do not fall under this consideration.
Wegovy, Rybelsus, and Ozempic, are the different brand names for Semaglutide. They have a black box warning for Medullary thyroid cancer.* 🤦🏼♀️
Related:
Hospitals in Two States Denied an Abortion to a Miscarrying Patient. Investigators Say They Broke Federal Law.
Doctors told her she might die but she couldn’t have an abortion under state law until she got sicker, documents show. The Biden administration says failing to act violates a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care.
Hospitals in Two States Denied an Abortion to a Miscarrying Patient. Investigators Say They Broke Federal Law.
[2021] The Dying American Autopsy
Before 1970, 40-60% of patients who died in hospitals received an autopsy. In 1970, The Joint Commission, the organization responsible for hospital accreditation, eliminated the requirement of a 20% autopsy rate for in-hospital deaths for hospitals to receive accreditation. In the years since this decision, we have seen drastic declines of autopsy rates. In recent years, less than 5% of hospital deaths are followed up with an autopsy.
In a move that has further contributed to our declining autopsy rates, in 2019 the Trump administration pushed through the Omnibus Burden Reduction (Conditions of Participation) Final Rule. This rule attempted to “cut through red tape” by eliminating redundant, or excessively burdensome regulations that affect hospitals and healthcare providers. A part of this rule eliminated the requirement for hospitals to “attempt to secure autopsies in cases of unusual death and of medical-legal and educational interest”. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Trump administration argued that the autopsy requirement was redundant because states have their own autopsy regulations in place. However, the American Society for Clinical Pathology highlighted that only six states have laws requiring autopsies in the case of all unusual deaths.
Health Insurance Whistleblower: Medicare Advantage Is “Heist” by Private Firms to Defraud the Public
Many of the nation’s largest health insurance companies have made billions of dollars in profits by overbilling the U.S. government’s Medicare Advantage program. A New York Times investigation has revealed that under the Advantage program, health insurance companies are incentivized to make patients appear more ill than they actually are. Some estimates find it has cost the government between $12 billion and $25 billion in 2020 alone. We speak with former healthcare insurance executive Wendell Potter, now president of the Center for Health and Democracy, who says Medicare Advantage will be recognized in years to come as the “biggest transfer of wealth” from taxpayers to corporate shareholders, and blames the lack of regulation over the program on the “revolving door between private industry and government.”
Health Insurance Whistleblower: Medicare Advantage Is “Heist” by Private Firms to Defraud the Public
Related:
‘The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions (archived)
Prescription Drug Price Reforms Won’t Happen for Years
Prescription Drug Price Reforms Won’t Happen for Years
Read More »The two biggest benefits for seniors in the IRA are the Medicare negotiation of certain high-cost prescription drugs, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap. But while price negotiations technically start next year, no consumer will see the benefit until the new prices begin in 2026, and even then on only 10 drugs (another 15 are added in 2027 and 2028, rising to 20 by 2029 and subsequent years).
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The $2,000 out-of-pocket cap, which is across the board for all seniors, not just on certain drugs, is even worse. That cap doesn’t go into effect until 2025, although out-of-pocket costs get capped at $4,000 in 2024. If there is kind of an explanation for delays in setting up Medicare drug price negotiation, for the out-of-pocket cap there is not. You literally tally up patient out-of-pocket costs, which are fully transparent, until they hit $2,000, and then stop them. Why does this take more than two years to pull off? Medicare itself, the entire program, took only a year to implement.
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Other parts of the bill do come online more quickly. The insulin price cap of $35 a month for Medicare recipients starts in 2023, as does free vaccine coverage in Medicare and the rebates on Medicare drugs with price increases above inflation. But the inflation rebate is benchmarked to 2021 prices, locking in those high costs, and just would mute price growth. The real benefits here are Medicare negotiations that lower drug prices, and the cap on all prescription drug costs for seniors. Those are delayed.
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It is absolutely insane for a political party to boast that it lowered prices for seniors when the price reductions are years and years down the road. That kind of de facto bait and switch leads to distrust and anger. You’d have thought Democrats would have learned this lesson in the Affordable Care Act, whose major benefits didn’t kick in for four years after passage, a time lag that helped lead to two midterm wipeouts. But here we are again, as Democratic officials tout a drug price reform that isn’t visible to anyone.
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That’s not necessarily Democrats’ fault (although they could have ignored the parliamentarian, of course). What is their fault is the failure to immediately make evident the benefits of the policy. Democrats have had a tendency to break faith with their base, to make promises and fail to deliver. Here’s a policy they’ve been promising for nearly two decades, they pass the policy, and they’re going to spend years explaining how the implementation is just around the corner. It comes off as double-talk and toxifies a political brand. And in this case, it was unnecessary.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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