A NEW TYPE OF MEDI-GAP: With the number of COVID cases 3 times higher than the country’s previous peak last January, the Biden administration has made testing a more important component of its pandemic strategy.

The fashionable online page that provides loose tests on the door of one and both Americans is only a small component of the administration’s plan, limited to just 4 tests according to the home. Most of the test plan includes new rules that, starting this week, insurers will have to cover the costs of 8 immediate over-the-counter tests according to the user both one month and another 32 single tests for a circle of 4.

But there’s a big loophole: In-home testing likely won’t be reimbursed through Medicare, which covers about 64 million people age 65 and older or with long-term disabilities.

About 42% of Medicare beneficiaries participate in what’s called an Advantage plan (administered through personal insurers with broader coverage than Medicare beneficiaries can subscribe to) and some of them will have coverage. But Advantage plans are not required to perform coverage testing.

What if you were one of 58% of Medicare beneficiaries without an Advantage plan?You can get a check through the new online page or at a clinic or doctor’s office, but you cannot be reimbursed for the purchase of immediate over-the-counter checks. .

Americans are part of the demographic cohort most vulnerable to covid complications. This is the organization with the highest covid risk factors. People over the age of 65 accounted for nearly three-quarters of all covid deaths in the pandemic, according to the CDC.

Medicare, by adding the component with Advantage plans, is rarely very designed to cover things that other people can get over the counter, without a prescription, said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at kaiser Family Foundation, who was recently nominated through Biden to serve on the Medicare Board of Directors. The rules-laden program directly charges expenses to registered providers, such as hospitals, doctors, laboratories, and pharmacies. It does not reimburse patients as a flexible spending account or advertising insurer does.

“There is no design in position in a position to use for payment,” he said.

The Centers for Medicare

CMS also encourages Medicare Advantage plans to perform canopy testing voluntarily. But it requires regimes to pay them. It’s unclear at this time how many Advantage plans plan to reimburse other people who get the tests at home.

These measures are enough, say some advocates and legislators. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif. ), chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Commercial Health, suggested the Biden administration, in a letter sent Wednesday, establish a broader home testing policy for Medicare beneficiaries.

“There is more information about how long it will take to pass a solution and whether it would require a replacement in the law or whether CMS can do it on its own,” Neuman said.

It turned out that no one knows the answer to Neuman’s question. The company did not respond to Nightly to see if it can solve the challenge under the Medicare Act, without new legislation.

CMS also told AARP how it would solve the problem or whether it would, said Andrew Scholnick, AARP’s senior legislative representative in government affairs.

Going to a doctor, pharmacy or other site to get a lab checkup that Medicare will pay for is a big hurdle, Scholnick said. you can go in combination with friends and family or in an overcrowded environment.

“To say they shouldn’t have the same point of hosting evidence is ridiculous,” he said. “This is an unfair and bad policy. “

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Get in touch with news, tips and concepts at [email protected]. Or tap tonight at [email protected], or on Twitter at @RenuRayasam.

Some Democrats are not in a position to give up child tax credits: They are reluctant to recommend that the White House abandon its offer to relaunch its children’s tax credit plan. A day after President Joe Biden appeared in a position to admit he might fall by the wayside, some lawmakers said they would not abandon the proposal, which is included in a vast package blocked in the Senate.

Georgia’s prosecutor is calling for a special grand jury as a component of the election investigation: The Georgia prosecutor investigating imaginable attempts to interfere in the 2020 general election through shaper President Donald Trump and others has asked a special grand jury to assist in the investigation. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to Fulton County Superior Court Chief Christopher Brasher asking him to form a special grand jury. She wrote in the letter that her workplace “has gained in shape, indicating a moderate likelihood that the management of georgia’s 2020 state election, adding the state election of the president of the United States, has been subject to an imaginable disruption of thieves. “

Jan. 6 Panel to Question Ivanka Trump: Jan. 6 investigators revealed today that they were attacking Ivanka Trump, whom senior White House officials saw as a last-ditch hotel to convince Donald Trump to stand up to the rioters of the Capitol attack. according to the evidence and testimonies that were made public today. “He didn’t say yes to Mark Meadows, Kayleigh McEnanay or Keith Kellogg, but could he say yes to his daughter?”A committee investigator asked Kellogg, a senior Trump White House official, in a recent interview, according to a transcript of testimony released through the panel.

U. S. drops case against MIT professor accused of ties to China: Justice Department dropped trial of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor accused last year of concealing academic ties to the Chinese government, saying he could “no longer meet his burden of proof at trial. “The branch revealed its resolve in the case opposing Gang Chen in a one-page case in Boston Federal Court.

– SEC blocks Anthony Scaramucci’s Bitcoin fund: The Securities and Exchange Commission rejected Anthony Scaramucci’s proposal to launch a Bitcoin-based investment fund, saying it would be too risky for investors. The proposal through Scaramucci, a financier known for his 10 days as a former president Donald Trump’s communications director in 2017 would have allowed investors on the New York Stock Exchange to buy shares in a subsidized fund through the virtual currency Bitcoin. This is just one of many exchange-traded budgets that are touted as a way to allow Americans to speculate on the value of Bitcoin without having to buy it outright.

BIDEN CLARIFIES ‘RAID’ OBSERVATION: Biden tried to explain his comments about a possible “minor incursion” through Russian forces into Ukraine, which senior Ukrainian government officials have condemned as unnecessarily provocative as a component of a broader White House effort to conceal the president’s remarks. .

Speaking before an infrastructure assembly at the White House, Biden said he had been “absolutely clear” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that his Kremlin counterpart “had no misunderstanding: any Russian unit assembled crosses the border into Ukraine, it’s an invasion. “

Such an invasion would face a “severe and coordinated response” from the United States and its European allies, which has already been “very clearly presented” for Putin, Biden said.

“Let there be no doubt,” he added Biden. Si Putin makes this decision, Russia will pay a heavy price.

Biden’s most recent comments today represented a slight review of his comments at a White House news conference on Wednesday, in which he predicted that Putin’s forces will “intervene” in Ukraine and laid out his opinion on possible responses to such aggression.

‘PLEASE DAD, NO MORE SCHOOL ZOOM’: Omicron’s rise is draining California teachers and keeping students at home in unprecedented numbers, yet political leaders are still willing to stand up to the alternative: distance learning.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders who legalized school closures at the beginning of the pandemic insist on keeping study rooms open, writes Alexander Nieves. They have enlisted help from the California Teachers Association even though some teachers on the floor say execution situations are untenable due to understaffing. And school districts do their best to keep academics in the classroom, pulling retired teachers off the sidelines and recruiting workplace staff, including superintendents, to teach.

This is a dramatic turning point for a state that had the longest pandemic shutdowns in the country.

“I’m very, very sensitive to that, to the learning opportunities that are missed because kids aren’t in school, to the demanding situations of being online,” Newsom said when asked this month about distance learning. “My son, we have had seizures and exits, go in and out of school,” he said, “Please, Dad, no more Zoom school. “

The Sacramento City Unified School District called on local citizens to “replace themselves and be heroes” by obtaining an emergency replacement instructor designation. Palo Alto schools turned to parent volunteers for food service, workplace support and other on-campus jobs. Did someone send you this email? Register here.