2009
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Colorado Expands Kids Coverage Despite Budget Crunch
Deb Colburn, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved On Monday, Liz Arjun blogged about the fact that CHIPRA has encouraged many states to move forward on health coverage for children despite challenging budgetary climates. Colorado is one of those states. The All Kids Covered initiative, a statewide collaborative, worked for passage of the legislation that was signed into law by…
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Isn’t Coverage That Meets People’s Needs Really the Goal?
Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee convened a roundtable to focus on the coverage issues in health reform (a small topic). They covered a lot of terrain although in fits and starts. While the debate over the public plan option continues to take center stage, the Medicaid debate also began to take shape. Senators Grassley and Hatch both…
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The Last Piece of the Puzzle
By Jocelyn Guyer The nation has made significant progress in covering children, but nine million children still lack insurance and many more are at risk of not receiving the health care services that they need to develop and grow properly. To address these issues, children will need to be an integral part of the much…
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CCF Turns 4 Today!
The Center for Children and Families came into being four years ago today to develop effective, practical strategies to improve access to quality health care for children and families. As we spend our birthday watching the Senate Roundtable Discussion,”Increasing Access to Health Care Coverage,” we wanted to celebrate with you online (fewer calories that way).…
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More States Are Saying Yes to Kids Coverage
One of the most common questions we get at CCF is, “What are states doing to cover kids?” Since CHIP was reauthorized in February, this question has taken on a new twist: “Are states doing more to cover children since the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) of 2009 was signed by President Obama?” The answer…
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What does the Senate Finance Committee’s new proposal for transforming the health care delivery system mean for children?
By Jocelyn Guyer Nothing! (If I were cooler, I could have twittered this response in.) Seriously. The Senate Finance Committee’s nearly 50-page description of policy options for “Transforming the Health Care Delivery System: Proposals to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Health Care Costs” literally has nothing to say about the steps that could be taken…
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Good Interpreters Can Save Lives & Limbs
Mara Youdelman, Staff Attorney at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) and Director of the National Language Access Advocacy Project As immigrant communities expand across the United States, many healthcare providers and patients have encountered communication barriers making it difficult for patients to receive proper care. We think Mara has a better grasp on this issue…
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Reading the Tea Leaves on Health Reform
Last week, work on health care reform began in earnest on Capitol Hill. Senators Kennedy and Baucus (the Chairman of the Senate Health Education and Labor Committee and the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, respectively) began the week by issuing a joint letter about their intent to move health care reform bills, by the end…
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Health Reform Update – The Varsity Team is on the Field
By Jocelyn Guyer An overused, but still valid staple of political commentators is “follow the money,” but when it comes to health reform, another useful exercise is to follow the key staffers. In a clear sign that Congress intends to make a full court press on health reform this year, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman…
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Making CHIPRA Work: Enrolling Eligible Children in Health Coverage
Authors: Tricia Brooks and Donna Cohen Ross New England Alliance for Children’s Health — Presentation Document April 2009
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CMS Ready for Questions on CHIPRA
By Joe Touschner While some are already celebrating the success of CHIP reauthorization in covering millions more kids, if you’re reading this blog, you probably realize that the number of questions raised by the new law rivals the number of children that need coverage. The law provides states with enough information to move forward on…
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Everything You Wanted to Know About Medicaid but Were Afraid to Ask…
State Representative Gary Elkins(R-TX) has been maligned for asking “What’s Medicaid?” three hours into a hearing but at least he wasn’t afraid to ask. Given that Medicaid is perhaps the least discussed and least understood of government health programs, it’s time to give it the attention it deserves. Medicaid is a cornerstone of the nation’s…
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Obama Health Team Takes Road Show to North Carolina
Adam Searing, North Carolina Justice Center’s Health Access Coalition The Obama Administration is holding a series of Regional White House Forums to continue discussions about bringing down health care costs and expanding coverage for all Americans. We asked Adam Searing of North Carolina Justice Center’s Health Access Coalition to post a guest blog from the event in Greensboro.…
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Health Reform: Children and Medicaid
Author: Cindy Mann American Academy of Pediatrics — Presentation Document April 2009
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Pointless Paperwork is a Pitch-Perfect Performance
When you talk about an issue long enough, every argument starts to sound the same, so much that even your own mother starts tuning you out. It’s a bit like “American Idol” or “Britain’s Got Talent” where all the auditions start to blend together. We’ve been crooning on for years about the excessive and unnecessary…
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11 Million Kids Now Covered!!! (Not Even Close)
By Jocelyn Guyer When I got home from work a few weeks ago my husband handed me a flyer we got in the mail. It praised one of our Senators for her vote for the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, and exclaimed joyfully that 11 million parents just got the great news that their…
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Why Blog? Why Now?
Why start a blog? At the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families we debated that question for some time before deciding to jump into the blogosphere. With everything going on with the economy and a rapidly shifting dynamic in the health policy world, we thought a blog would provide a good place to meet…
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CHIP Tips: Medicaid Performance Bonus
The CHIP law enacted in 2009 includes a number of important program and financing changes that affect both Medicaid and CHIP. One of these is the Medicaid Performance Bonus, which provides extra financial support to states that succeed in enrolling Medicaid-eligible children above target levels. This brief describes how the Medicaid Performance Bonus works, key…
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CHIP Tips: Medicaid Performance Bonus “5 of 8” Requirements
The CHIP law enacted in 2009 includes a number of important program and financing changes that affect both Medicaid and CHIP. One of these is the Performance Bonus, which provides extra financial support to states that succeed in enrolling Medicaid-eligible children above target levels. To qualify for the Performance Bonus, states much have implemented at…
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Addressing Crowd-Out
In health policy, “crowd out” or “substitution” occurs when public funds substitute private dollars that otherwise would have been spent on health care. It is an inevitable consequence of any effort to subsidize coverage for people in America’s voluntary health care system where individuals and their employers can drop private coverage when better, more affordable…