
States receive billions in extra federal Medicaid funds to cover more Americans during the pandemic
CNN
States are expected to receive a total of more than $100 billion in extra federal Medicaid funds to help them get through the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis released Tuesday. That's more than double what they are projected to spend on the growth in Medicaid enrollees.
The expanded funding stems from a coronavirus relief measure Congress approved in March 2020. It provides states with a 6.2 percentage point increase in their federal match rate for most enrollees. In return, states have not been allowed to drop residents involuntarily from Medicaid coverage during the public health emergency, which is currently set to expire in mid-July.
That protection has led enrollment to balloon -- with Kaiser projecting that it will hit 110.3 million by the end of fiscal year 2022 on September 30, an increase of 25% from fiscal year 2019, before the pandemic began.

The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida Tuesday to volunteer over the “next several days” to help to redact the Epstein files, in the latest internal Trump administrationpush toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation for alleged censorship – sharply ratcheting up the Trump administration’s fight against European regulations that have impacted digital platforms, far-right politicians and Trump allies, including Elon Musk.











