2017
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Senator Cassidy Tells Jimmy Kimmel He Wants to Protect Kids’ Health but Misses Point on Need to Preserve Medicaid to Achieve Goal
One of the largest challenges in showing the potential impact of the latest House-passed proposal to repeal the ACA is elevating the fact that our nation’s success in covering children is at major risk. Medicaid, accompanied by the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has been the primary reason our…
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Capping Federal Medicaid Payments to States: Four Questions to Consider
Late last week, the House of Representatives, with one vote to spare, passed a bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Among many other things, the bill would radically restructure the nation’s largest health insurer for children—Medicaid—by capping federal matching payments to states starting in three years and continuing each year after…
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The Most Important Part Of The Republican Health Bill Is Mostly Getting Ignored
Vox By: Matthew Yglesias The frenetic final days of the debate over the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives focused largely on patients with preexisting medical conditions — but not on sweeping cuts to Medicaid, which have the potential take health care from tens of millions of Americans. … However, there is…
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Indiana Medicaid Beneficiaries Fail to Make Top Tier Service Payment – 5 Key Notes
Becker’s ASC Review By: Eric Oliver More than half of Indiana’s 590,315 low-income beneficiaries enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program failed to make monthly payments required to receive “top tier” service, the Indy Star reports. … Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families Executive Director Joan Alker said to the Star, “The evaluation makes clear…
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NC Residents Get Less From Republican Health Care Plan
Asheville Citizen-Times By: Mark Barrett Federal spending to help lower- and middle-income wage earners buy health insurance would drop dramatically in North Carolina under the health care law winning approval in the U.S. House last week. … But the fact that the risk pool’s books balanced doesn’t mean that those who were covered could balance…
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More Than Half Of Indiana’s Alternative Medicaid Recipients Didn’t Make Payment Required For Top Service
Indianapolis Star By: Maureen Groppe WASHINGTON – More than half the low-income people who qualified for Indiana’s alternative Medicaid program failed to make a monthly payment required for the top tier of service — a key feature of the program Vice President Mike Pence insisted on as a condition to expanding the health care program…
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ACA Replacement Bill Clouds Future Of Children’s Health Insurance Program
Modern Healthcare By: Harris Meyer Passage of the House Republicans’ healthcare overhaul bill may have created political and policy complications for the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, whose funding will end in September unless Congress reauthorizes it. … “Rolling CHIP into the broader debate would be very unfortunate,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the…
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GOP’s ‘Obamacare’ Replacement Would Put State In Control Of Medicaid Eligibility
Arizona Republic By: Ken Alltucker House Republicans this week pushed through legislation that seeks to dramatically overhaul the government-funded insurance program that covers nearly 2 million low-income and disabled Arizonans. … In Arizona’s initial waiver application, the state said that its proposals would have a “positive effect on budget neutrality” without providing data to back up that claim, according…
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American Academy Of Pediatrics Speaks Out Against The AHCA, Because It’s Bad Policy For Kids
Romper By: Josie Rhodes Cook On Thursday, the House voted to break up aspects of the Affordable Care Act and replace the nation’s health care system with the American Health Care Act instead. Before the vote, several physician groups as well as patient-advocacy groups spoke out against the AHCA. Now, following it’s passing, the American Academy…
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Nation’s Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Imperiled
On November 9th I blogged about what the election results could mean for child and family coverage. As readers of Say Ahhh! know, the nation made extraordinary progress in reducing the rate of uninsured children to under 5%, This progress is thanks to Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). All three…
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These Are All The People The Republican Health Care Bill Will Hurt
Vox By: Dylan Matthews The actual policies contained in the American Health Care Act — the Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill that the House is voting on Thursday — would help some Americans a lot. The biggest winners are households making $250,000 a year or more, who would see two different taxes targeting them repealed; households with millions in investment income…
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Medicaid: As Washington Tries to Cut, States Take Action
The Washington DC 100 By: Adam Searing In Washington the proposed American Health Care Act contains a Medicaid funding cut of $839 billion. Since children make up about half of total enrollment in the Medicaid program, a funding cut of this magnitude would have a major impact on millions of children. In a contrast to cuts in Washington, Utah…
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Children And Family Advocates Say Good And Bad Came From Legislative Session
KAIT By: Mallory Jordan Arkansas’ legislative session plays an important role in the lives of Arkansas children and families, an official with a state children’s group said. The Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families hosted a conference in Jonesboro Wednesday to discuss how decisions in the last session have affected Arkansas children and families. … Rich…
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Arkansas Lawmakers Vote to Scale Back Hybrid Medicaid Plan
The New York Times By: The Associated Press Arkansas decided to not go forward with the Medicaid plan that would be removing 600,000 people from healthcare coverage, and make sure that the remaining participants were working. However, Arkansas is till determined to improve the program. … “I think it’s very perilous for the state to…
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Five Myths about the Medicaid Cap
The White House and the House Leadership are hoping to bring a bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the House floor for a vote this week. The bill contains a new section allowing states to waive ACA consumer protections relating to health insurance. It also contains the same cap on…
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Making Kids Wait for Coverage Makes No Sense in a Reformed Health System
A central goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is near universal access to affordable health insurance through Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and subsidies to help purchase private coverage in the new Health Insurance Marketplaces. As states full implement the ACA, they are modernizing the way Medicaid and CHIP do business, including…
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Medicaid: Welcoming Americans with Pre-existing Conditions since 1965
The White House and the Republican Leadership in the House are continuing to look for enough votes to pass a bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A number of Republican Members opposed to the bill have expressed specific concern about new amendment that would allow states to undo the ACA’s protections…
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The Nonsensical GOP War on Maternity Care
Tonic By: Jason Silverstein Trumpcare and the American Health Care Act are still on the watch, as it still has not been approved because even Republicans did not think it was the appropriate plan to leave thousands of Americans without healthcare coverage. … Medicaid pays for nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States.…
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The Affordability Equation: The Conversation about ACA Subsidies Must Consider Premiums and Cost Sharing at the Same Time
By Hilary Dockray, Social Interest Solutions As the debate about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues – Repeal? Replace? Repair? – it is important to remember that the ACA was designed to work as a whole and that disassembling pieces of it would be unwise. But the national conversation continues to deal separately with two…
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The G.O.P. Health Bill Is Alive Again. Here’s a Quick Way to Catch Up.
The New York Times By: Margot Sanger-Katz The American Health Care Act proposed by the Republican party to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was updated since it failed to pass in March. Now, the plan will allow states to waive three of the Affordable Care Rules, which according to the Congressional Budget Office would…
