Latest news with #AHCA
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Mother overcomes challenges to graduate with son at UAHT
HOPE/TEXARKANA, Ark. (KTAL/KMSS)—At 18, Amber Walker became a single mom, which forced her to put her dreams of attending college and becoming a nurse on hold. Amber had her son, Dawson Hinds, at a young age and raised him independently for years before meeting her husband. 'For a long time, I put my own goals on the back burner to focus on giving my children the love, support, and stability they needed,' Amber said. 'Once they reached a point where they were more independent, I finally felt it was time to do something for myself, and that's when I began my journey at UAHT.' UAHT offering free year with Hempstead Guarantee Scholarship Amber started at the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana (UAHT) at the same time as her son, who was 16 then. She said she felt inspired by their shared goal of education. 'Dawson was already a few steps ahead, having been part of the Arkansas High Collegiate Academy (AHCA) at UAHT since the 10th grade,' Amber said. 'Since Dawson already had some college experience, he never hesitated to help me when I needed guidance. 'At 34 years old, going to college with my high school-aged son was both humbling and incredibly rewarding. My path to higher education was not a straight one—I had to put it on hold to raise my children and focus on building a life for them. But I never let go of the dream. Though our journeys were different, Dawson and I shared a common goal of growth, perseverance, and lifelong learning. He brought youthful energy and a fresh outlook, while I brought life experience and determination. Together, we supported and inspired each other every step of the way.' UAHT earns five awards at educational advertising competition Amber received multiple scholarships at UAHT and became a member of Phi Theta Kappa, showing her dedication to excelling in the classroom despite her challenges. Dawson simultaneously earned an Associate of Arts degree and a high school diploma through AHCA at UAHT. He heads to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville this summer, having earned over $24,000 in scholarships. 'My experience at the Arkansas High Collegiate Academy at UAHT was great,' Dawson said. 'The faculty and staff were always friendly, and the courses had excellent content to prepare me for the University of Arkansas. UAHT always prioritized the students.' Free Classes at UA Hope-Texarkana available at select high schools 'Together we pushed through, supported one another, and accomplished a significant milestone side by side,' Amber said. 'Our journey proves that age is just a number, young or older, and that you should never let it define or limit what you can achieve.' Amber and Dawson graduated together at 36 and 18, walking side-by-side across the commencement stage. 'It is one of the best feelings, graduating with my son and reaching our life goals together,' Amber said. 'Thank you, UAHT, for helping make this possible!' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
$880 billion in Medicaid cuts would be ‘devastating' for nursing homes and their residents
The nursing-home industry finds itself in the crosshairs of a congressional budget debate. The House Budget Committee voted in February to seek at least $880 billion in mandatory spending cuts to programs overseen by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. That committee oversees Medicaid, which is funded through a federal and state partnership. Warren Buffett proves, once again, why he's the best 'We are the most privileged': My husband and I are tired of paying for our friends. How do we get them to pay their way? 'Retirement is within my grasp': I'm 57, my 401(k) is dropping and I'm feeling anxious about a recession. What can I do? My eldest son refused to share his father's $500K inheritance with his siblings. Should I cut him off? My father is giving me $250K to buy a home, but told me not to tell my two siblings. Am I morally obligated to tell them? The potential $880 billion in Medicaid cuts could hurt the finances of nursing homes and lead to reduced services or outright closures, cutting care for the most vulnerable older populations. The deep reductions are needed to allow Republicans to achieve their topline budgetary goals, including tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office said the only way to meet the cost-cutting goals is through massive cuts to Medicaid overall. Medicaid accounts for about 8.6% of the federal budget, according to health-policy research nonprofit KFF. The final budget details have not yet been hashed out. In April, the Senate passed an amended budget resolution, but the two chambers still must agree to a joint budget resolution. 'Any cuts to Medicaid would be devastating,' said Clif Porter, president and chief executive of American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, the trade group for nursing homes and assisted-living centers. 'Not only do we have a large portion of seniors on Medicaid, but the program already underfunds [nursing homes] by 18%.' Nationally, 63% of nursing-home residents and 20% of assisted-living residents rely on Medicaid to pay for their care. There are about 1.3 million people living in nursing homes and more than 800,000 people in assisted living in the U.S., according to AHCA/NCAL. 'The fear of closures is real. Medicaid cuts could bring many homes to the brink and lead to closures,' Porter said. Any new closures would come on top of the 774 nursing homes that shut their doors between February 2020 and July 2024, according to AHCA/NCAL, amid financial pressures, staffing shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic. That wave of closures displaced nearly 30,000 residents. All this is putting access to long-term care at risk. Within the United States, 42 counties have no nursing homes as of April 2025, according to AHCA/NCAL. The vast majority — 85% — of these nursing-home deserts are in rural areas, and 20% of all seniors live in rural communities. 'Medicaid covers a lot of community-based, home-based services. If you stop checking on the elderly to see if they're eating right and take away community-based services, people are going to be sicker, sicker and sicker. You'll then have sick people flood the hospitals. Hospitals will be burdened with a lot more sickly patients,' said Dwayne Clark, the chair, chief executive and founder of Aegis Living, an assisted-living company that has 38 facilities with 3,000 residents. The industry recently won a court battle against a Biden-era staffing mandate that would have required more caregivers in facilities. The rule could have provided a boost to patient care, but the industry sued to halt the requirement. In addition to the pressure on nursing homes' bottom lines, the industry argued it would have been 'impossible' to implement, in part due to a shortage of healthcare workers. According to AHCA/NCAL, the Biden administration staffing mandate would have led to facility closures or reduced bed counts and to the possible displacement of more than 290,600 seniors. With the federal staffing mandate off the table, nursing homes are now bracing for Medicaid cuts that would be disruptive to the industry and to older people, a population that is projected to grow significantly in the coming years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people over the age of 80 will increase from 14.7 million today to 18.8 million by 2030. 'We're dealing with an exploding population. Cutting Medicaid is not a rational approach,' Porter said. 'One danger of potential closures is an increase in nursing-home deserts.' When nursing homes close, patients are often transported to facilities farther away. In some cases, patients return home. 'Given the age and fragility of the patients, when facilities close, they may be sent to a facility 50 miles away. The senior may still get care, but their loved ones have to travel farther to see them. It can result in an increase in loneliness because of a lack of family nearby,' Porter said. 'People underestimate the impact of loneliness as we age. So when homes close, it absolutely affects the care and spirits of the patient.' He added: 'Without question, there will be more demand in America. We should be thinking about expanding existing resources. Existing capacity is not enough. We have to do everything we can to have resources for the exploding population.' Sam Brooks, public policy director for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, said any cuts to Medicaid would ripple across the healthcare system and lead to higher overall healthcare spending nationally. 'With Medicaid cuts, you'll see less staffing, and that's the key component to quality care. Staffing is the No. 1 cost for nursing homes,' Brooks said. 'Residents won't get out of bed, because there's not enough staff to help them or transport them. Call bells won't get answered. Patients will suffer from pressure ulcers because there's not enough staff to reposition them.' Brooks noted that pressure ulcers, or bedsores, can be deadly, because they can lead to sepsis. Staff cuts will 'lead to greater illness and increased hospitalizations. It will have a tremendous deleterious effect, because people struggle right now to get quality care, and it would only get worse if there are cuts,' he said. 'With cuts, care quality would inevitably decline,' he added. 'The proposed cuts are an existential threat to nursing homes and to all long-term care services in the United States. It will affect veterans, older Americans and people with significant disabilities.' If federal Medicaid dollars are cut, states won't have the resources to offset those lost dollars, said Edward Miller, chair of the gerontology department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. 'Most states can't offset those cuts. With even less reimbursement, [nursing homes] will have even less resources, lower staff [levels] and worse quality,' Miller said. 'What happens is that families will have fewer resource options to fund robust long-term-care resources. What is your choice then? Most care is already provided by unpaid caregivers, and that will increase — which will impact their lives, their jobs, their retirement and the economy.' The proposed $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid could have a domino effect within the U.S. healthcare system, Aegis Living's Clark said. 'There will be this big bubble of sick people. There will be a massive amount of elderly, and we can't fix it right away,' he said. 'This big bubble of sick people will affect everyone.' 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Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Smear': Gov. DeSantis hits back as House, media probe Hope Florida funds
Gov. Ron DeSantis again condemned Florida House Republicans and the news media over continued questioning into the beleaguered Hope Florida initiative of his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis. The DeSantises, state officials and program participants appeared at St. Augustine's Anchor Faith Church April 24 to defend and promote the program, billed as a conservative alternative to traditional welfare that connects needy Floridians with help from nonprofits and other charities. A House panel and news organizations have been digging into a $10 million dollar donation that was connected to a $67 million legal settlement between the state and Centene, a Medicaid-managed care vendor, over alleged overbilling. 'They're trying to smear this program,' DeSantis told the crowd in conservative St. Johns County, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2½ to 1. 'Some of them, some of these lefty journalists don't like it. They don't like you working with the faith-based community." Funded by donations from individuals, private businesses, donations, grants, gifts and investments, Hope Florida serves as the support organization for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Its secretary, Taylor Hatch, accompanied DeSantis for the visit. Referring to his wife, now said to be eyeing a run for governor in 2026 when he is term-limited, he added: "Some of these people view it as a way to attack the First Lady and all the great things she's done. They view her as a threat. That's what's motivating this." The entire settlement was $67 million but $10 million was directed to the Hope Florida Foundation in October. The foundation, which raises money for the Hope Florida program, then gave two $5 million grants each to two nonprofit organizations: Securing Florida's Future, chaired by Mark Wilson, who is also the chairman of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Save Our Society from Drugs. Those groups in turn gave $8.5 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee chaired by James Uthmeier, then DeSantis' chief of staff. In February, DeSantis appointed him to be Florida's attorney general. Keep Florida Clean was set up to oppose an amendment on the 2024 ballot to legalize recreational marijuana. The group has given $1.2 million to the Florida Freedom Fund, another political committee chaired by Uthmeier and used by DeSantis to fight both the marijuana amendment and an amendment that would've installed a right to an abortion into the state's constitution. During the event's Q&A, DeSantis said the state's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) sent documentation to the House that 'totally debunks the bogus media narratives.' 'Partisan journalists were told this was coming and they still tried to produce these phony narratives," DeSantis said, adding the documents show how AHCA 'negotiated' the funds. 'So that debunks the phony narrative.' Hope Florida has done 'an enormous amount of good, and I'm proud of the program, soup to nuts," the governor said. DeSantis is facing criticism because under Florida law, money from settlements must be deposited into the state's general revenue fund and reported to the Legislature for oversight. The $10 million donation was not. In an earlier press conference, DeSantis said the $10 million was not part of the $67 million agreement signed in September 2024, one not disclosed to the Legislature. "When you do settlements, you can try to get as much money as you can, but this was in addition to what they were getting," he told reporters at a press conference in Miami. He described it as "kind of like a cherry on top, where they agreed to make an additional contribution, and so we were served well by what AHCA did.' Jim Rosica of the USA TODAY Network – Florida Capital Bureau contributed. This story also contains previously reported material. This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: DeSantis defends $10M Hope Florida gift from House, media scrutiny
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amid AHCA scandal, Medicaid accountability bill heads to Senate floor
(iStock/Getty Images Plus) Members of a Senate spending panel on Tuesday agreed that there should be more oversight over the state program that pays health care costs for the poor, elderly, and disabled and passed SB 1060. The bill, which heads to the full Senate next, establishes a Joint Legislative Committee on Medicaid Oversight to ensure transparency in the state's Medicaid program, mostly administered through contracts with managed care plans. It would require the Agency for Health Care Administration (AFCA) , which houses the Medicaid program and is charged with oversight, to by July 1 enter into a contract with the the state auditor general to maintain a data-sharing agreement. The auditor general is directed to assist the committee in its work. With time ticking on the 2025 regular session, it's not clear whether the bill will make it through the process, though. That's because the House counterpart, HB 935, has yet to be heard in a committee. Sen. Jason Brodeur said he filed the bill because AHCA increased Medicaid reimbursement rates by $100 million over the amount that the Legislature appropriated in state fiscal year 23-24 to pay the plans. The agency, he said, held authority to increase the rates because Florida law authorizes agencies to make adjustments within 5%. 'So, this bill simply says we're creating a joint committee with our own actuary. So that should we get those kinds of bills presented to us, we have our own folks we can ask to say, 'Is this right?' It may be. Probably is. But if we're going to be spending that kind of money on a program this big, I'd like to have somebody who works for us tell us that's the right number.' The bill comes amid a whirlwind of controversy surrounding AHCA, its role in a Medicaid settlement with health care giant Centene that directed $10 million to Hope Florida Foundation, and the foundation's contributions to political committees fighting a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana. Health care giant Centene writes a $10M check to Hope Florida Foundation Hope Florida Foundation meeting includes warning on tax status The growing controversy, first reported by The Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald, has dominated the 2025 session and played a role in the Senate's decision this week to not confirm two of Gov. Ron DeSantis's choices to run large state agencies: Shevaun Harris as secretary of AHCA and Taylor Hatch as secretary of the Department of Children and Families. Touching on the Hope Florida controversy, Sen. Jason Pizzo asked Brodeur whether the new joint committee would have authority over pre-suit settlements. 'I do not know,' Brodeur replied. Pizzo followed, 'Would you be amenable to taking a look as to whether or not the oversight board would be able to monitor pre-suit settlements of Medicaid overpayments?' Brodeur said he would. 'It sounds reasonable to me, because the entire point of this is oversight to begin with. So whatever oversight that looks like, it should be comprehensive,' Brodeur said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Don Gaetz: Senate won't confirm two of DeSantis's top health care secretaries
New AHCA Secretary Shevaun Harris (L) and new DCF Secretary Taylor Hatch (R) (Photos via Gov. Ron DeSantis's social media) Two recent top agency appointments by Gov. Ron DeSantis, both of whom have been grilled by legislators over a charity linked to First Lady Casey DeSantis' Hope Florida initiative, appear unlikely to win confirmation this session from the Florida Senate. Sen. Don Gaetz, chair of the committee responsible for screening appointees, told the Florida Phoenix in a phone interview Monday that of the more than 200 gubernatorial appointees for the Senate to consider this session, roughly 150 are still awaiting action. He said the committee lacks time to consider the appointment of Shevaun Harris as head of the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) or Taylor Hatch as secretary of the Department of Children and Families (DCF). Under Florida law, if the full Senate fails to take action on a confirmation the governor must reappoint them to that post within 30 days. The Senate would then consider the appointment during its next session. Appointees who fail to win confirmation a second time must leave their positions. 'I know this: That because we won't be able to get to her, her term of office will end and he'll [DeSantis] have to reappoint her,' Gaetz said of Harris' future as AHCA secretary. When asked whether he would vote to confirm Harris at AHCA, the largest of the state's health care agencies, Gaetz said: 'I'd have a hard time voting for Secretary Harris unless she came clean and had a very different story than what she's telling the House.' Gaetz also told the Florida Phoenix that he has 'serious questions for both of them. They both know it.' Gaetz, himself a former Senate president, and committee vice chair Mack Bernard, a Democrat from West Palm Beach, issued a memo outlining how the Senate confirmation process would proceed under Senate President Ben Albritton for the next two years. The memo explains that every gubernatorial appointee will be considered by their substantive committee as well as the Ethics and Elections Committee. 'A favorable vote of the Ethics and Elections Committee will be required in order for a nominee to be recommended for confirmation by the full Senate,' the memo says. 'However, the President always has the prerogative to move any nomination to the full Senate.' The committee didn't begin considering gubernatorial appointments until its March 31 meeting, having spent its previously scheduled hearings discussing substantive legislation instead. 'Tuesday comes before Wednesday. Nominees come to us as they come to us,' Gaetz said, noting that he doesn't get to 'pick and choose' the names on the agenda. Katherine Betta, a spokesperson for the Senate President Ben Albritton, said the governor's office is aware of the situation. 'The President's goal is to have a more thorough process for confirmations by broadening the opportunities for Senators to engage in the confirmation process. There is insufficient time remaining this session to move forward with confirmation proceedings for Secretary Harris and Secretary Hatch. The President has great respect for their dedicated and longstanding service to the state, specifically to the vulnerable populations they have both served and continue to serve over their respective careers in state government. The confirmation process provides the opportunity for reappoint and certainly if that occurs, there would be time more time this fall during interim committee weeks and next session for consideration.' DeSantis put Harris in charge of AHCA in February after he tapped Jason Weida, who had been secretary of that agency, as his chief of staff. Before that, Harris had run DCF, the agency that created the nonprofit Hope Florida Foundation to help Ms. DeSantis' Hope Florida. DeSantis then appointed Hatch, who had been director of the Agency for Persons with Disabilities (APD) to serve as head of DCF. The Hope Florida Foundation, a direct support organization, has been at the center of a growing controversy surrounding a $10 million 'one time donation' health care giant Centene made to it. The money was part of a $67 million settlement the managed care plan signed with the state over Medicaid overpayments. The foundation than gave $5 million grants to Secure Florida's Future, a nonprofit tied to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and Save our Society, another political committee. Within days, those groups made contributions to Keep Florida Clean, which opposed last year's marijuana-legalization initiative. James Uthmeier, the governor's former chief of staff, now Florida attorney general, controlled Keep Florida Clean. House Health Care Budget Subcommittee chair Alex Andrade told members of the Hope Florida Foundation during their board meeting last week that the contributions could jeopardize the foundation's 501(c)(3) status and that the foundation should try to recoup the funds. The Senate Committee on Children and Families voted up on Hatch on March 25, but she still needs the ethics committee's nod. The Senate Health Policy Committee approved Harris' nomination as AHCA Secretary in April 1. At that same meeting, the committee approved DeSantis's choices as heads of the boards of Chiropractic Medicine, Medicine, Optometry, and Physical Therapy Practice. Likewise, the ethics committee will consider a spate of higher education appointees (some of whom are controversial) Tuesday that were considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Higher Education on April 15 and April 10, well after Harris and Hatch were initially considered by their substantive Senate committees. Phoenix reporter Jay Waagmeester contributed to this story. This story has been updated with comments from the Senate President's office. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
