Medicaid Regains Power to Deduct From Home Health Workers’ Pay

State Medicaid programs will regain the authority they lost in the Trump era to withhold union dues and deductions for benefits from home health workers’ payments.

The Biden administration final rule (RIN 0938–AU73), published Thursday, is the latest move in a back-and-forth disagreement between Democratic and Republican administrations over how Medicaid programs should interact with home health workers and their unions.

At issue is how to interpret a provision of the Medicaid statute prohibiting payments to anyone other than the person or institution who provided a covered service. The new rule includes amended language specifying that payments to third parties ...