The law requires the public option plan or plans to be offered at a 5 percent markdown, with the goal of reducing the average premium costs of the plans by 15 percent over four years. They are also mandated to include a gold and silver plan.

With implementation of Nevada’s second-in-the-nation public health insurance option still years away, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) is considering a list of shorter-term solutions to reduce the number of uninsured people in the state.

State officials said this week that eligible immigrants should apply to Medicaid now that a rule penalizing people for using public assistance has been rolled back. 

While Cannizzaro’s proposal to establish a state-managed public health insurance option has garnered significant attention, a lesser-noticed portion of the bill, SB420, proposes expanding certain Medicaid services in the state, including increasing eligibility of up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level for coverage for pregnant women, adding coverage for doulas (trained professionals who often assist in childbirth) and community health workers and requiring payment parity between advanced nurse practitioners and physicians.

Assemblywoman Maggie Carlton, during a budget subcommittee meeting on Thursday, suggested that lawmakers plan for the extra federal health care funding to exist for an additional six months beyond the current date it is set to expire, June 30. Her recommendation comes as the federal government has indicated that the current public health emergency will “likely” extend through the end of the calendar year, which would, in turn, mean that the enhanced federal matching dollars would be available through March 2022.

While the money sits unused, nearly half of the 118 families surveyed for the audit said it was “hard” or “very hard” to get their child formally diagnosed with autism, which is a prerequisite for the aid.

Though hospitals and medical providers were hopeful that cuts made to the state’s Medicaid program last month would be restored after federal matching dollars were extended through the end of the year, the head of Nevada Medicaid told lawmakers Thursday it might be some time before that can happen.

Nevada Medicaid is moving forward with a planned 6 percent across-the-board rate reduction approved by lawmakers during a special session last month to balance a billion dollar shortfall in the state’s budget.

State officials presented to the Senate on Wednesday $233 million in proposed cuts from the health care budget that will slash key programs for low-income Nevadans and significantly pare back mental health services to ease a budget crisis caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

State officials projected Wednesday that nearly a quarter of the state’s population will be enrolled in Medicaid, the public health insurance program, by the end of May as the state weathers an unprecedented economic crisis amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In 2018, the state reported that 1,024 of the company’s employees were earning full-time wages and 1,116 of their dependents were on Medicaid — the state-run health insurance program for low-income Nevadans — at a cost of upwards of $5.7 million a year to taxpayers. (Those numbers include any employees who worked full-time for Sutherland as well as those who made the equivalent of full-time wages but may have split their time between Sutherland and another company.)

A health-care fellow at a Nevada think tank has been hired to oversee the state’s division overseeing Medicaid and low income children’s health insurance