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The Trump administration is trying to revive the president’s stalled election-eve plan to send millions of Medicare recipients a $200 prescription discount card. A person familiar with the effort tells The Associated Press that government agencies still face legal questions about the plan. That’s on top of the daunting logistics of sending an estimated 39 million people a functional card in the midst of the holiday season without the benefit of much advance planning. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 12/9)

The White House is trying to surmount a previously unreported hurdle in its bid to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to give senior citizens $200 in drug-discount cards: An industry panel says the cards don’t meet the government’s own standards. Trump’s plan, which blindsided health officials in September, came as the president sought to reverse declining poll numbers among “our wonderful seniors” by bragging about giving $200 to most Medicare beneficiaries, declaring “Joe Biden won’t be doing this.” (Diamond, 12/9)

On his way out of the White House, President Donald Trump is taking one last swipe at the Affordable Care Act, proposing to allow states to opt out of the Obamacare exchanges where millions of Americans enroll in health insurance plans. If states choose this potential new option, residents would no longer have access to a one-stop shop for health insurance. Instead, they would have to find their way to private insurance brokers or individual carriers. They also wouldn’t have access to impartial advisers, so-called navigators, to assist them in making their choices. (Ollove, 12/9)

Support for the Affordable Care Act has reached 55 percent, tying a record high, according to polling from Gallup released on Wednesday. Support for the 2010 health care law has hovered around 51 percent for most of 2017-2019, but it previously hit the record high of 55 percent in April 2017 as congressional Republicans moved to repeal President Obama's signature legislation. A bill to repeal and replace the law passed the House around that time before failing in the Senate. (Budryk, 12/9)

The Trump administration will pay incentives to more than 9,000 nursing homes for reducing COVID-19 related infections and deaths in the fall. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will split $523 million between those nursing homes beginning Wednesday. (Hellmann, 12/9)

KHN: Trump Plan May Set Clock Ticking On Many Health Rules — Setting Off Alarms

The Trump administration wants to require the Department of Health and Human Services to review most of its regulations by 2023 — and automatically void those not assessed in time. A proposed rule would require HHS to analyze within 24 months about 2,400 regulations — rules that affect tens of millions of Americans on everything from Medicare benefits to prescription drug approvals. (Galewitz, 12/10)