Resources
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Keep Calm and Carry On
If you were anything like me during the Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, you jumped every time a news alert came over your email, and then audibly groaned as you read missives such as: “THE ACA IS DOOMED! 9 OUT OF 10 LEGAL SCHOLARS AGREE!” Amazing how conventional wisdom can change…
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Arizona to Open Coverage for More Kids
By Martha Heberlein Health coverage may now be an option for almost 22,000 children currently on the waiting list for CHIP (aka KidsCare) in Arizona under an 1115 waiver amendment approved on April 6th by CMS. The state had been negotiating to establish additional funding streams for uncompensated care payments to certain hospitals and Indian health…
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Data Helps Lead the Way to Reaching Uninsured Children
By Anna Strong, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families recently published an update on our state’s efforts to ensure that all children have health coverage. The best news in “Crossing the Finish Line: Cutting the Red Tape in 2011” is that, despite a recession and an increasing child poverty…
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Essential Health Benefits Resources List
The following is a resource list related essential health benefits.
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CCF Shares Resource List on Essential Health Benefits
By Joe Touschner If you’re a regular Say Ahhh! reader, you’ve seen a number of posts already on the ongoing process to define the essential health benefits. Most of those linked to additional supporting documents, like the Bulletin and FAQ released by HHS and the comparison of potential benchmark plans from Maine’s insurance department. And many more…
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Final Exchange Rules Provide Roles for Both Brokers and Navigators
One of the thorniest issues arising early on in states at the forefront of planning and implementing their Exchanges has been the role of brokers and navigators. In a number of states, brokers have contended that only “licensed brokers” should serve as navigators. On the other hand, consumer groups have maintained that brokers lack not…
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Digging in on the Question of Access
By Martha Heberlein As I mentioned last week, a chapter in the most recent MACPAC report focuses on access to care for kids enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP (the technical work was done by our friends at the Urban Institute). The results are like those we’ve seen from other studies that examine the issue – when…
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State Budget Woes? Take a Look at Revenues, Not Medicaid
By Martha Heberlein For those regular Say Ahhh! readers, you know we have long harped on accurately depicting the role of Medicaid in state budgets. When new data are released, we update our report or write another blog to try to correct a misrepresentation that Medicaid is solely responsible for state budget woes. Today we are releasing a…
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State Budget Woes: Revenue Declines, Not Medicaid Spending, are to Blame
As states have faced large budget deficits, some politicians have laid the blame at Medicaid’s doorstep, saying that the program’s costs are growing “out of control” and that it is “crowding out” other priorities. While spending in Medicaid has grown as a result of increased enrollment due to the recession, most of this added spending…
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Why Kids’ Advocates Should Pay Attention to SHOP
By Kathleen Hamilton, The Children’s Partnership One of the first and most interesting questions posed by the California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) to its Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) stakeholder work group was “who is the SHOP consumer?” Early discussions clearly revealed a fundamental assumption that the “consumer” in SHOP was the employer. As…
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ACA’s Medicaid Expansion is Popular with Public
One of the least often discussed provisions of the Affordable Care Act continues to be one of the most popular according to the latest Kaiser Health News tracking poll. Seventy percent of those responding to the poll thought favorably about the ACA provision to expand Medicaid to more low-income uninsured adults. That’s right up there…
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Holding Insurers Accountable: Should We Add an MLR to Medicaid?
A hot issue in many states today is whether or not to move more Medicaid beneficiaries, and often very vulnerable beneficiaries, into managed care. Indeed, many managed care companies are interested in getting or keeping a foot in the Medicaid market given the expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014. And many, though not all, states are…
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Taking Stock of Important Milestones as ACA Turns Two
By Kevin Lucia, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Studies When a child turns two, it’s natural to take stock of all the milestones they have achieved such as first steps, first words and first solid foods. Some parents are even organized enough to document all these achievements in a baby book. …
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Sharpen your Speed Reading Skills – Regs are Coming Fast and Furious
By Jocelyn Guyer In recent days, we’ve started to feel a bit like Lucy and Ethel in their famous chocolate factory scene where the conveyor belt keeps speeding up faster than they can box the candy. Lately, HHS and other federal agencies have been releasing important ACA regulations at such a fast and furious pace…
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ACA Protects and Improves Access to Preventive Care for Children
Medicaid and CHIP have helped millions of children access preventive care at no cost to families. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes this commitment further by removing cost and coverage barriers that could deter families from taking full advantage of preventive care services in private insurance plans. Since becoming law, the ACA has helped maintain…
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ACA Lightening the Load – Better Access to Preventive Care
As some Say Ahhh! readers know, I recently moved across the country with my husband and toddler. It’s been more than three months, but we’re still searching our new place for clothes or items that got lost in the shuffle. Of course, part of moving is also setting up your life in a new place…
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Ryan Budget – Same Old Tune
and Martha Heberlein House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a budget plan we’re guessing will sound pretty familiar to you as it looks much like the plan he released last year. It would convert Medicaid to a block grant, deeply slashing federal funding by $810 billion over the next ten years (bigger than the…
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The New Review and Approval Process Rule for Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP Demonstration Waivers
Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP demonstration waivers are intended to allow for research and demonstration projects to test new approaches in program design and administration. The Affordable Care Act required the Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations designed to ensure that the public has meaningful opportunities to provide input into the Section…
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Medicaid Block Grants Reduce Flexibility & Less Responsive to Changing Need
House Budget Committee Chair, Paul Ryan, will soon release a budget that will likely include a Medicaid block grant. Meanwhile, I have been busy preparing for a debate on block grants in a class I’m taking. I found that block granting Medicaid is a risky idea because it would make the program less flexible for…
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New MACPAC Report Released
By Martha Heberlein What an exciting week for data lovers! First the CBO Baseline was released and yesterday MACPAC put out their March report. As usual, it’s chock full of goodies! This edition of the report has 4 chapters (not to mention the always appreciated MACStats!). The first chapter focuses on the more than 9…
