Health Announce: Sept. 22, 2025

09/23/25

Topics for this week’s Health Announce:

  1. This Wednesday – HCWG focuses on immigrant healthcare access and coverage.
  2. Save the Date – October 15th webinar on the end of ConnectorCare Plan Type 1.
  3. NHeLP Webinar: The Role of Due Process – this Thursday, September 25, 2025.
  4. Health care-focused supplemental funding bill on Governor’s desk for signing.
  5. Summer MTF seminars posted.

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Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Today, our day and our night are almost equal in length. This afternoon at 2:19 pm, the sun crossed the Equator: the southern hemisphere’s daylight hours begin growing and the northern hemisphere will see more darkness than daylight. The constellation of Libra also moves from the northern to southern hemisphere. In ancient astronomy, Libra was represented as the claws of a scorpion or by a balanced scale. Some have posited that the balanced scale alluded to the autumnal equinox and the balance between day and night.

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Be well,

Health Law Unit
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute

1. This Wednesday – HCWG focuses on immigrants’ healthcare access and coverage.

This Wednesday’s Health Care Working Group (HCWG) will focus on immigrant healthcare access and coverage and feature a presentation by Jeanne Funk, a senior immigration attorney at MLRI, about developments locally and nationally. Additionally, Vicky Pulos will talk about the end of ConnectorCare Plan Type 1 and what mitigation options might exits. We’ll see you on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, from 3:00 – 4:30 pm. If you have any other issue to add to the agenda, please let us know jkaplan@mlri.org or ksymmonds@mlri.org).

2. Save the Date – October 15th webinar on the end of ConnectorCare Plan Type 1.

Health Care for All and MLRI are hosting a webinar on October 15, 2025, from 10:00 – 11:30 am to discuss the end of ConnectorCare Plan Type 1. Register here. This change will result in 36,000 low-income, lawfully present immigrants in Massachusetts losing access to affordable health coverage. The conversation will include how to help members learn what to expect and what actions to take. For an explainer on the impact of this change, see MLRI’s fact sheet.

3. NHeLP Webinar: The Role of Due Process – this Thursday, September 25, 2025.

This Thursday, September 25, 2025, at 4:00 pm, the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) is offering a webinar on the important role due process will play as the federal and state governments implement the Reconciliation Act of 2025 (aka, OBBBA or OB3) changes to Medicaid. Part of the series “What We Know and What Happens Next: OBBBA and Its Impact on Health Care Coverage,” the webinar offers tools and strategies for advocates to use as they work to protect access to care and coverage and to advance health equity. Register here.

For more information and resources, visit NHeLP’s Post-OB3 resource page. Upcoming webinars include (registration not yet open):

  • Access to Care: Cost Sharing, Premiums, and Retroactive Eligibility, October 9, 2025
  • The Impact on People with Disabilities, October 23, 2025

4. Health care-focused supplemental funding bill on Governor’s desk for signing.

H.4530, a supplemental appropriations bill providing $234 million in financial relief to hospitals and community health centers, awaits the Governor’s signature after passing the house and the senate last week. The Act includes $77 million for the Health Safety Net Trust Fund, $35 million for community health centers, and $199 million for acute care hospitals. According to Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues, quick action was needed because many hospitals were very close to defaulting on their bond covenants (link behind paywall). The Health Safety Net, a fund that reimburses hospitals for care provided to individuals with no or little insurance, was facing significant shortfalls. Notably, $122 million of the $199 million provided for high public payer hospitals will be distributed according to a tiered system that factors in a hospital’s payer mix, state relative price, and operating margins.

5. Summer MTF seminars posted.

The Massachusetts Health Care Training Forum (MTF) has posted the presentation and transcription for its Summer Training Learning Series:

  • Summer 2025 MA Health Care Learning Series Updates – covers Health Connector updates on 2025 Marketplace, Affordability Final Rule, Federal Budget Bill Provisions, Open Enrollment 2026, redeterminations and renewals, walk-in center closures, and payment guidelines.
  • Summer 2025 MassHealth and Health Safety Net Updates – covers updates on the discontinuation of certain flexibilities, MassHealth eligibility start date rule, MassHealth health plan, enrolling QMB-eligible members into Medicare, estate recovery, and MassHealth Operations.
  • Summer 2025 MassHealth Training Forum Provider Updates Presentation – covers, among other things, updates on the reinstatement of Primary Care Clinician Plan/Primary Care ACO referral requirements, Ordering Referring and Prescribing (ORP) requirements, advancing interoperability and improving prior authorization processes.