2017
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The AMA Strongly Opposes The Senate’s Health-Reform Proposal
AMA Wire By: David Barbe A lot of big numbers have been tossed around in the days since Senate leaders unveiled a “discussion draft” of legislation—dubbed the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA)—that would dramatically reshape how our country’s health system is financed. … 37 million is another number that comes to mind. That…
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New Health Bill Would Be A Dream For Wealthy Americans, A Nightmare For Everybody Else
Atlanta Black Star By: Cecilia Smith For several years, the GOP has rallied around a common goal, namely, stripping health care from millions of citizens. Now, it looks as if they may be closer to success, with Senate Republicans unveiling a bill that will effectively chip away at the Affordable Care Act. … “This is…
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How The CBO Score Could Shake Up Republicans’ Health Plan
Politico Pro By: Dan Diamond It’s expected as soon as today, and it’s going to predict a big coverage decline. And that will throw another headwind in front of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as he attempts to win over still-uncommitted Republican senators ahead of a planned Thursday vote. … How rural America depends on…
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Medicaid’s Role for Seniors Living in Small Towns and Rural America
Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of older adults (age 65+) who are likely also enrolled in Medicare. Medicaid is the primary payer for long-term services and supports that are not covered by Medicare, paying for more than 50 percent of these costs in 2015. This role is especially important as the population ages: 37…
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Does GOP Health Care Include Grandfather Clause For Medicaid Expansion?
PolitiFact By: Joshua Gillin Proposed changes to Medicaid shouldn’t worry people currently using the health care program for the very poor, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said, because their coverage will continue. … Joan Alker, a public policy professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, said that even…
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Reviewing the Evidence on the Value of Health Insurance
Some of our favorite health researchers—Ben Sommers, Atul Gawande, and Katherine Baicker–published an article this week in the New England Journal of Medicine sharing the most recent evidence on the effects of health insurance coverage, especially Medicaid coverage, to inform the national debate on health care. They review the most rigorous studies on how health…
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State Data on Non-Elderly Health Coverage in Small Towns and Rural Areas
The state-specific downloads in the table below show county-level data on total non-elderly populations’ (children and adults) Medicaid coverage and uninsurance for the time periods 2008/09 and 2014/15. Data on children is available here, and data on adults can be found here. Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia are excluded because less than 2…
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2 Winners And 4 Losers From The Senate Health Care Bill
Vox By: Dylan Matthews The Better Care Reconciliation Act, Senate Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, would if passed lead to one of the largest redistributions of income in American history, just as Obamacare itself did. … Joan Alker, a Medicaid expert at Georgetown University, estimates that those eight states alone could lead to…
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Senate Health Bill Called “Anti-Rural”
Huffington Post The head of the National Rural Health Association said the organization will oppose the Senate’s healthcare bill because the legislation will hurt rural America. … Among these are deep cuts in Medicaid spending and an end to Medicaid expansion. About 45 percent of rural children use Medicaid, compared with 38 percent in metropolitan…
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4 Things To Know About The Senate Health Care Bill
Time By: Alicia Adamczyk, Elizabeth O’Brien The Senate on Thursday finally unveiled draft language for the Better Care Reconciliation Act, its replacement for the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Like its predecessor, the House’s American Health Care Act, the proposal would jeopardize coverage for lower-income and middle-class Americans in order to deliver big tax breaks for…
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Rubio Says He’ll Review Senate’s Obamacare Repeal Bill, Nelson Rejects It
Politico By: Christine Sexton The partisan divide in Congress over health care policy predictably rippled through the ranks of Florida lawmakers on Thursday after the Senate finally unveiled its long-awaited plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. … Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families and Research Professor at…
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Senate Bill is Not Nice to Children and Families
There is a tremendous amount to digest here, and we are still working through the complex text, but one thing is clear – the Senate bill (like the House bill) will start moving the country backwards with respect to child and family coverage. Readers of Say Ahhh! know that the number of uninsured children is…
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Medicaid Cuts Would Reduce Access To Care For Kids
The Daily Item By: Pat Bruno As early as next week, the U.S. Senate could vote on its version of health care legislation. Though no version has been shared with the public, if it’s anything like the American Health Care Act (AHCA) recently passed by the House, pediatricians and the kids we serve are in…
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The Medicaid Cap: “Carving Out” Medically Complex Kids Won’t Protect Them
The Senate Leadership is reportedly including a cap on federal Medicaid payments to states in its version of legislation to “repeal and replace” the ACA. That cap will apparently look a lot like the cap that narrowly passed the House in early May, but with some tweaks to accommodate concerns of individual Senators. One tweak…
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Rural Areas Brace For Health Care Bill Impact
Roll Call By: Sandhya Raman The Senate historically has paid special attention to the needs of rural areas, but as the chamber readies its health care bill, there are concerns that the bill would undermine coverage in those places more than anywhere else. … About 51 percent of residents in rural West Virginia, 47 percent…
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G.O.P. Plan Is Really A Rollback Of Medicaid
The New York Times By: Margot Sanger-Katz Tucked inside the Republican bill to replace Obamacare is a plan to impose a radical diet on a 52-year-old program that insures nearly one in five Americans. The bill, of course, would modify changes to the health system brought by the Affordable Care Act. But it would also…
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Candace Webb Joins Center for Children and Families Team
We are pleased to announce that Candace Webb has joined the staff at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families as a senior state health policy analyst. Candace comes to Georgetown University with a decade of experience in public health, most recently as the Western Services Branch Chief in the Division of State HIV/AIDS Programs…
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The AHCA Will Kill Jobs and Chill Economic Growth
The ongoing political debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act keeps me scratching my head on many fronts, one of which is the overwhelming body of evidence that the proposed replacement will cause real people to lose real jobs. The latest report on to catch my attention was an economic and employment analysis by the Commonwealth…
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States Battling Opioid Epidemic Will Face Tougher Times if Medicaid is Cut
As readers of SayAhhh! already know, the bill passed by House Republicans and currently under secret consideration by Senate Republicans – the American Health Care Act (AHCA) – would limit federal funding to states for Medicaid. The funding limits, known as a per capita cap, would shift all of the risk inherent in health insurance…
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States at Risk = Children and Families at Risk
It is a truth universally acknowledged that states don’t get sick, people get sick. But in a program like Medicaid, where the federal government and the states share in the cost of medical and long-term care services that people need, the fiscal fortunes of states and the health of beneficiaries are inextricably linked. If the…
