2017
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Arizona Moving Ahead with Proposal to Add AHCCCS Work Requirements
Arizona Daily Star By: Stephanie Innes Arizona could become one of the first states in the country to impose work requirements and five-year lifetime limits on “able-bodied” adult enrollees in Medicaid. Arizona’s request to the federal government to tighten its Medicaid eligibility has been delayed by more than five months, but state officials say they…
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CHIP Snapshot Data Sources
Below is a description of sources used for data reported on the CHIP State Snapshots provided by Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). All snapshots are available here. Children’s Health Coverage Rates To calculate children’s coverage rates, Georgetown CCF conducts an analysis of single-year estimates…
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Affordable Care Act: What Comes next?
Green Bay Press-Gazette By: Sara Finger and Jon Peacock Last month, the health care advocates and the American people won a tremendous victory when the U.S. Senate voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The dramatic Senate vote reflected the public’s overwhelming opposition to repealing the ACA. In fact, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation…
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Hurricanes to Drain Children’s Health Insurance Funds
Bloomberg By: Alex Ruoff The hurricanes battering Gulf states will tax public insurance systems for children there, underscoring the need for Congress to extend funding for the programs soon, researchers and advocates told reporters Sept. 8. … Natural disasters run up hospital bills for people on public insurance programs and increase enrollment in programs like…
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Reduced Funding for Navigators and Public Education Could Harm Nation’s Success in Covering Kids
No smart business stops investing in marketing and customer support when sales are down. But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is doing by cutting funding for advertising and navigators. The recent announcement that CMS is decreasing Healthcare.gov’s direct marketing budget by 90 percent and reducing funding to navigator entities by almost half is shortsighted for…
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Health Insurance Program for Pennsylvania Kids Must Get Federal Funding by the End of September
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By Kate Giammarise Federal funding for a program that provides health insurance for 176,000 children in Pennsylvania will expire at the end of September unless Congress acts to extend it. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, needs to be re-funded by Congress every few years, but advocates say they are concerned…
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Health Care Leaders Urge Congress to Continue Funding CHIP
The Register-Herald By: Wendy Holdren With federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) set to expire Sept. 30, health care policy experts at the Children’s Health Policy Summit shared Thursday the importance of renewing the program, especially for children in West Virginia. Of the 97 percent of children in West Virginia who are…
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Will Congress Continue Health Care For 9 Million Children?
Kaiser Health News By: Phil Galewitz A popular federal-state program that provides health coverage to millions of children in lower- and middle-class families is up for renewal Sept. 30. But with a deeply divided Congress, some health advocates fear that the Children’s Health Insurance Program could be in jeopardy or that conservative lawmakers will seek…
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Will Congress Act in Time to Keep CHIP Coverage in Place for Kids?
Last month, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of CHIP – an acronym that needs no explanation to readers of Say Ahhh! Over the years, CHIP’s high profile and strong bipartisan popularity has played a significant role in advancing children’s coverage, along with earlier expansions of Medicaid to the most vulnerable children. CHIP spurred states to…
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To Insure More Poor Children, It Helps If Parents Are On Medicaid
Kaiser Health News By: Shefali Luthra Efforts by Republican lawmakers to scale back Medicaid enrollment could undercut an aspect of the program that has widespread bipartisan appeal — covering more children, research published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs suggests. The study focuses on the impact of Medicaid’s “welcome-mat” effect — a term used to…
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Divisions Over Obamacare Persist In Congress
Opposing Views By: Jordan Smith As Congress returns to work following the August recess, partisan divisions over the Affordable Care Act continue to impact health care policy. Some have suggested the bad blood created during the Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, may hinder bipartisan progress on items…
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Texans Lucky Gov. Abbott Didn’t Get Wish For Medicaid Block Grant, Funding Cap Critics Say
Inside Health Policy Hurricane Harvey is the kind of natural disaster opponents of Medicaid funding caps warned about, and they say it would be much more difficult to recover from Harvey if Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) got his wish for a Medicaid block grant. … “Gov. Abbott has been a proponent of Medicaid block…
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HHS Bulletin on Medicaid and CHIP Managed Care Regulations Raises Red Flags
Last year, HHS finalized changes to the Medicaid and CHIP managed care regulations to modernize and streamline program rules for the first time in over a decade. Nearly 9 in 10 children enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP get their care through some type of managed care arrangement, so we teamed up with NHeLP to review the rules…
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Back-to-School Season Focuses Attention on Need to Connect More Kids with Health Coverage
Children’s health advocates have their hands full trying to preserve Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for America’s children, but they can’t slow down on their efforts to connect more kids with coverage. Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are unenrolled because their parents aren’t aware of the option…
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Experts: States can adjust to lower CHIP match if they have time to prepare
Modern Healthcare By Mara Lee Keeping the enhanced match that was added to CHIP as part of the Affordable Care Act is unlikely to be the sticking point for a bipartisan deal, a senior House Republican aide said. … Kelly Whitener, associate professor of the practice at Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, said…
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Shielding Children from the Rising Costs of Prescription Drugs
Consider three different drugs that are used by children. Amoxicillin is an inexpensive antibiotic that might be prescribed when a child has an ear infection. Typically, this generic drug would cost between $5 and $15 for a one-time prescription. Antibiotics are the most common type of drug used by children under age 6. EpiPen is…
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Critics: Iowa’s Stopgap Insurance Plan Would Hurt Low-Income, Seniors
Public News Service DES MOINES, Iowa – A stopgap insurance plan presented this week to federal officials by Iowa’s insurance commissioner needs to be re-worked to better protect low-income and older Iowans, according to the Child & Family Policy Center. …. Mary Nelle Trefz, a health policy associate with the center, notes that the impetus…
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Kelly Whitener on the Children’s Health Insurance Program
CSPAN Video: Professor Kelly Whitener talked about the future of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). View the video here.
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Oklahoma CHIP Faces Trouble If Congress Can’t Pass Extension
The Oklahoman By Meg Wingerter Oklahoma City — Oklahoma pediatricians are urging Congress to quickly reauthorize a health insurance program for children before it expires in September potentially costing the state $49 million. … States receive a federal block grant and have some latitude in running their CHIP programs, so long as they commit their…
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Recent Research Shows Disparities in Health Care Access Reduced After The ACA
We know that access to health care is correlated with many demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The Affordable Care Act, through the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace, extended coverage to uninsured populations with the hope of reducing disparities in access to health care. After the first couple of years of the insurance expansions, research shows that…
