The acronym HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and should be taken into consideration when you are planning your estate.

(According to article in Kaiser Health News, posted February 21, 2020, by By Phil Galewitz)

The Trump administration’s top Medicaid official, Seema Verma, has been increasingly critical of the entitlement program she has overseen for three years.

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has warned that the federal government and states need to better control spending and improve care to the 70 million people on Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the low-income population. She supports changes to Medicaid that would give states the option to receive capped annual federal funding for some enrollees instead of open-ended payouts based on enrollment and health costs. This would be a departure from how the program has operated since it began in 1965.

In an early February speech to the American Medical Association, Verma noted how changes are needed because Medicaid is one of the top two biggest expenses for states, and its costs are expected to increase 500% by 2050.
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“Yet, for all that spending, health outcomes today on Medicaid are mediocre and many patients have difficulty accessing care,” she said.

Approximately 50 million—or 20 percent—of American adults reported donating to a crowdfunding campaign to help raise money for a medical bill or treatment.
(CHICAGO, Feb. 19, 2020)

​One in five Americans reported that they or someone in their household have contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to pay for medical bills or treatments, according to a new AmeriSpeak® Spotlight on Health survey from NORC at the University of Chicago. Crowdfunding is the process by which individuals may raise funds from a large amount of people, often through sites such as GoFundMe.