This is sad — I was sitting outside my daughter’s school waiting for a friend this morning avidly reading Friday’s Federal Register. For those of you who missed it, the proposed regulation implementing new transparency and public notice procedures for Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP waivers was released on September 17th, 2010.  I think my friend thought I was a little kooky, but I was very excited about this because I have given birth to two children (one of whom is now in middle school) since I started advocating for more public participation in these high-stakes and often-secretive processes.  Finally, finally we have a big step forward.

I blogged on the role of waivers in the new world and the particular provisions of ACA that mandated these new rules back in June. The new rules are not everything we would have wished for, but definitely something worth cheering about.

The proposed regulation is available here.

Comments are due on November 16th, 2010. Georgetown CCF will be developing some analysis of these regulations and public comments with our partners at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities so stay tuned to Say Ahhh.