Creator: JJ Rabinowich
SNF Digest #185
From the White House to Congress to the regulatory agencies, JJ gives you the inside word on what is what for this week.
WHITE HOUSE:
This past week, the White House focused on new tariffs on Canadian goods, the announcement of $5 billion for the Genesis Mission, part of a plan to develop AI for science and space exploration, and a new report from the White House’s Office of Science & Technology Policy outlining the Administration’s priorities for American scientific R & D (available here as a PDF). Two items of indirect interest:
They secured the commitment of additional utilities, data centers developers, technology companies and others to join the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, a voluntary commitment by those engaged in the usage and infrastructure of data centers operations to pay for their energy usage, thereby lowering the costs for American consumers. Given the high price of energy associated with AI usage, anything that can bring down the cost is a welcome note.
In a Truth Social post, the President announced that he’s going to impose a 100% tariff on imported generic drugs, starting in August 2028. There’s been no formal legal policy announcement yet, but given the effective date of August 1st, 2026, expect one this week.
CONGRESS:
The House, looking to avoid prolonged in-fighting and hoping to give Members something positive to campaign on, got the ball rolling on a pair of funding bills, right before heading home for the summer. First up was the passage of the budget framework that kicks off Reconciliation 3.0, a $95 billion package that primarily focuses on funding for the military. Then, way earlier than typical, the House passed a “clean” Continuing Resolution” that would fund the government at current funding levels all the way through December, thereby aiming to avoid the usual shutdown drama. While the final version is unlikely to pass as is, the early passage of Reconciliation 3.0 and the CR amps up the pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to get something done in the two more weeks before the Senate heads home for the August recess. Elsewhere in the political world:
The House Energy & Commerce’s Health subcommittee unanimously voted to send HR 3514, the Improving Seniors' Timely Access to Care Act of 2025, to the full House for a vote. The vote follows last week’s unanimous passage out of the Ways & Means committee and is a welcome step along the trail to passage. Overall, 15 separate health bills, primarily focused on price transparency, passed out of the subcommittee.
A new bill proposed by GOP fiscal conservatives wants to give $28 billion to the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program for the fight against healthcare fraud.
As the House heads home to campaign, there’s a lot of nervousness among the GOP, especially as Democrats appear to be in a good position to retake the House.
Democrats officially have a new nominee in Maine.
One interesting CRS report from the week: R49015; a guide on institutional investors in single family housing. While a little far afield from our typical CRS reports focused on healthcare, many of our readers are also interested in real estate investments.
AGENCIES:
HHS announced the deferral of more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota as it seeks additional documentation from the state to support their Medicaid expenditures. As part of the announcement, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. announced that he’s giving more “exclusionary authority” to CMS. McKnight’s has a good summary and follow-up to the announcement.
CMS released a new proposed rule that cleans up many of the provisions from the One Big Beautiful Bill as it relates to State Directed Payments. For the most part, this doesn’t affect directly SNF funding at the state level, although as often discussed, whenever less dollars flow to the state, it constrains Medicaid budgets. The proposed rule can be found at the Federal Register, where comments can be submitted through September 21st.
CMS rescinded a pair of QSO’s related to resident voting rights, while at the same time issuing a new directive to state survey agencies reminding facilities that they have to protect resident’s voting rights. The state survey notice is here (PDF).
CMS announced, on their X channel, the release of a new batch of provider level data at the central CMS data site that highlights where Medicaid funding is going.
HHS announced that as part of the Genesis Mission, they’re going to be launching a series of challenges to spur innovation and the usage of AI in tackling chronic disease and other urgent healthcare priorities.
CMS is appealing their recent loss in a lawsuit brought by Clover Health related to the star ratings the agency gave the insurer.
The GAO released a new report that found many employees at large companies, such as Amazon, Walmart, and rideshare apps, utilize Medicaid programs. The full report is here (PDF).
The OIG at HHS performed an audit on Novitas and found that it improperly paid nearly $20 million for Part B beneficiaries in SNF’s. The summary is here (PDF) and the full report is here (PDF). The audit may result in additional oversight measures put into place by Novitas.
The Department of Labor issued a proposed rule that would allow group health plans to provide required notifications to employees digitally. The proposed rule can be found at the Federal Register, where comments can be submitted through September 21st.
FROM THE NOTEBOOK:
The Kaiser Family Foundation did a deep dive into the work requirements placed upon states by the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Let the press releases begin. Cigna is claiming that its AI tools will save customers an estimated $200 million over the next 3 years.
A judge threw out United Healthcare’s defamation lawsuit against the Guardian for the paper’s reporting on the insurer’s I-SNP plans.
It’s not just healthcare that has to deal with AI and algorithms. NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill signed new legislation that bans the usage, by landlords, of rent-setting software that uses algorithms & AI to set rent prices.
A back-and-forth in HealthAffairs shows that even the experts can’t agree on whether AI is going to cause healthcare prices to go up or down…
