2012
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HHS Signals Approach on Actuarial Value, Cost Sharing
By Joe Touschner In a bulletin released late last week, HHS provided some indication of how it will use the key concept of actuarial value in rating health plans under the Affordable Care Act. The same bulletin shared some clues on the cost-sharing reductions that some moderate income families will receive when they enroll in exchange…
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Public Programs that Work – Good News on Children’s Coverage
By Eugene Lewit, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Late last year, while official Washington and its pundits were busy deconstructing the failure of the “Super Committee” and the rest of us were planning our holiday celebrations, the National Center for Health Statistics quietly released its 2011 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data. Among other…
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Welcoming Children to the World Justice Brennan Style
NPR reporter Nina Totenberg tells the story of how Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan briefly met her sister the day she learned she was pregnant. He got caught up in the excitement and eight months later, remembered the news and asked Nina about her sister’s due date. When he learned that Nina’s new niece,…
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Child Well Being Index Report Provides Valuable Data to State Advocates
By Tara Mancini As we have reported, the U.S. has recently achieved some of the lowest uninsured rates for children on record. Yet, over the same period of time, children continued to experience increased rates of poverty. Because we know that poverty is distributed unevenly in the country, and in fact is often concentrated, the key message…
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CMS Denies Florida Bid to Raise Medicaid Cost-Sharing
American Medical News February 24, 2012 By Doug Trapp Florida cannot require its poorer Medicaid enrollees to pay premiums or large co-payments, according to a Feb. 9 decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The move is a setback for Florida’s request to expand Medicaid managed care to nearly all of its 3…
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NCKFN Roster
National Covering Kids & Families Network ALABAMA Covering Alabama Kids & Families/ AL Dept of Public Health ALASKA Alaska Primary Care Association Voices for Alaska’s Children Work Group ARIZONA Children’s Action Alliance ARKANSAS Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families CALIFORNIA Community Health Councils Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board National Health Foundation UCSD w/San Diego Kids…
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Webinars & Events
Webinars CHIPRA Cycle II Grantees: Successful Strategies to Enroll Eligible Children in Medicaid and CHIP February 27, 2012 The Twenty-First Century Enrollment Experience December 15, 2011 Politics and Policy in Washington: Potential Impacts on Enrollment, Simplification and Coordination of Children’s Coverage September 13, 2011 Simplification: What’s Working in Getting and Keeping Children…
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Membership Information
Membership Information What is the National Covering Kids & Families (NCKF) Network? The NCKF Network plays a critical intermediary role between national, state, and local policymakers and consumers by maximizing outreach, enrollment, retention, and utilization in health coverage programs. NCKF Network is a diverse group of local, state and national organizations that promote policies and…
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National Covering Kids & Families Network
The National Covering Kids & Families Network (NCKFN) is a community of organizations and individuals committed to advancing health care coverage and equal access to high quality health care. The network seeks to sustain and build upon the strength and collective expertise of grantees from the national Covering Kids & Families (CKF) initiative as well…
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Finish Line Evaluations
Since Finish Line was launched in 2007, 1.3 million more children have secured health care coverage bringing the uninsured rate for children to historic lows.
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Finish Line
Since Finish Line was launched in 2007, 1.3 million more children have secured health care coverage bringing the uninsured rate for children to historic lows.
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Strengthening Medicaid
Georgetown CCF’s Strengthening Medicaid project, which ran from 2007 to 2009, developed fresh approaches to strengthening Medicaid. The project was founded on the recognition that a strong Medicaid program is central to achieving key health care reform goals such as expanding coverage and controlling costs. To that end, the project developed specific recommendations to build…
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Keeping Care Affordable: CMS Stands up for California Kids
By Michael Odeh, Children Now Earlier this month the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made an important ruling that truly embraces the “AFFORDABLE” in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Health care services and economics research over the past four decades has clearly shown that unaffordable cost-sharing in health care can be a…
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A State-by-State Look at Gains in Preventive Care Under the ACA
Since we spend a lot of time looking ahead to 2014 and the promise of significant gains in coverage, it’s always encouraging to see some immediate benefits of the Affordable Care Act. This time: preventive care for families. Last week, amidst the excitement over new Essential Health Benefit information and the Administration’s budget, some good…
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Let the Sun Shine: Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP Waivers Transparency Rule Finally Issued!
So my children think this is weird, but I was really happy yesterday because CMS issued the final regulations on Section 1115 waivers. CMS also issued final rules on so-called “State Innovation” waivers that will be available through the Affordable Care Act, but since those don’t go into effect until 2017 we will come back…
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Report Finds CHIP Crowd-Out Fears to be Unfounded
Remember all those claims about how private insurers would be “crowded out” if Children’s Health Insurance Program income eligibility guidelines were to be expanded? Now a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that those fears are likely to be unfounded as there is little evidence of any crowd out in the states that…
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Navigating Medicaid, CHIP and the Exchanges
States are busily working to transform their tugboat-type eligibility and enrollment systems into sleek 12-meter racing yachts of the America’s Cup variety. But will simplified, streamlined eligibility and enrollment systems mean smooth sailing for everyone? Not likely. No matter how fast and dynamic these new systems are, it still will take all hands on deck…
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New Study Examines the Impact of Premiums on Enrollment
In the last year, we’ve examined the potential impact of proposed premium changes in Florida and Wisconsin, but a new study in Health Affairs provides some real-world data on what actually happens when premiums rise (not that we in any way condone experiments in children’s coverage of this sort). Healthy Kids in Los Angeles County is…
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Good News for Utah’s Children: CMS Upholds Key Affordability and Benefit Protections
By Lincoln Nehring, Voices for Utah Children In 2011 Utah passed SB 180, Medicaid Reform. As with many Medicaid reform efforts happening across the country, SB 180’s broad theme was good: control costs through improved care management and quality. However, also like many Medicaid reform efforts happening around the country, Utah’s “improved quality” theme came…
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President’s Budget Meets with Predictable Response in Unpredictable Year
By Jocelyn Guyer With the release of the President’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal yesterday, CCF staff have begun the annual ritual of digging through lengthy documents and tables to untangle what it might mean for the health care coverage of children and families. It is a challenging task in the best of times, but…
