2017
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As Congress Stalls on Children’s Health Insurance, States Warn of Cuts
Governing By: Mattie Quinn The last time the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) needed to be reauthorized was back in 2015. That year, Congress took until April to approve the funding. It was the closest Congress had ever come to the program’s reauthorization deadline. … “It’s fundamentally robbing Peter to pay Paul and just goes…
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Here’s how Medicaid became the backstop of America’s ailing health care system
Dallas News By: Phil Galewitz When high levels of lead were discovered in the public water system in Flint, Mich., in 2015, Medicaid stepped in to help thousands of children get tested for poisoning and receive care. When disabled children need to get to doctors’ appointments — either across town or hundreds of miles away…
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Pennsylvania wrestles with uncertainty over children’s health insurance funding
WHYY By: Elana Gordon For more than two decades, The Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, has provided health coverage to millions of kids nationwide. But lawmakers have yet to reauthorize it, and that’s putting states whose funding expires soon in a bind. In Pennsylvania, that could jeopardize health care for upwards of 150,000 kids…
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Research Update: Medicaid Pulls Americans Out Of Poverty
This week, I am reading a study on one of my favorite topics: the poverty rate. In 2016, about 13% of the population lived in poverty. When broken out by age, children continue to have the highest poverty rate (18% under age 18, 12% ages 18 to 64, and 9% 65 and over). Children represent…
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New Research: Medicaid Expansions Increase Coverage More in Rural Areas than in Urban Areas
Rural areas and small towns across America have special problems accessing health care. Our colleagues at the University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Program have tracked the increasing numbers of rural hospital closures around the country. The Rural Health Information Hub is also a great resource on the opportunities and challenges for rural health delivery…
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Report: Children in Rural Communities More Likely to Rely on CHIP and Medicaid
The challenges that students face in many rural places are staggering. Limited access to advanced coursework, medical care, food, and employment opportunities continue to daunt students in many rural communities. Poverty rates are also climbing. In 23 states, a majority of rural students live in low-income households; this is a noticeable uptick from 2013 when…
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Kaiser Tracking Poll Shows CHIP Funding is Much Higher Priority than Tax Reform
The Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll was released today and it has good news for those who care about children’s health. While children’s advocates may feel that their messages about the need to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has not been getting through, this poll shows somebody has been listening to…
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Trump Administration’s New Medicaid Waiver Policy Will Increase Number of Uninsured: Kentucky Likely to be First Approved
I was in Kentucky last week where I spoke to an audience of health care providers and advocates about the success of the state’s Medicaid expansion and the giant step backwards its pending waiver proposal would be. I was relieved that the state’s pending waiver proposal wasn’t approved while I was there as my trip…
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How Medicaid became the most important battleground in American health care
Vox By: Dylan Scott On Tuesday, the state’s voters approved expanding Medicaid to 70,000 of their poorest residents, circumventing the archconservative governor who has blocked the expansion five times in the past four years. “Maine people have supported this for years,” Ann Woloson, who worked in support of the ballot initiative, told me the day before the…
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WV CHIP to shut down in February unless Congress allocates funds
Charleston Gazette-Mail By: Erin Beck The board of directors for the West Virginia Children’s Health Insurance Program voted Wednesday to shut down the CHIP program on Feb. 28, if Congress doesn’t allocate funding to the program soon. … Tricia Brooks, a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, said she worries…
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Dangerous Medicaid waivers likely to be approved under Trump administration
ThinkProgress By: Amanda Michelle Gomez The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), released new criteria Tuesday outlining how it will judge state applications that look to innovate the 1965 insurance program. Notably omitted from the newly unveiled plan: “expanding eligibility.” Veering away from the Obama…
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The CHIP slip — Congress must fund program that insures children’s health
The Anniston Star The bipartisan creation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) 20 years ago seems like a initiative from another universe. … “It’s very discouraging that Congress has reached this level of dysfunction and has so much difficulty extending a bipartisan program that has been so successful,” Joan C. Alker, the executive director…
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Healthcare for 200,000 Ohio children waits for funding, caught in political web
The Plain Dealer By: Ginger Christ Federal funding for a program that provides health insurance coverage to roughly 200,000 children in Ohio and 9 million across the U.S. expired more than a month ago, and Congress still hasn’t enacted legislation to restore funding. … Children are eligible for the program if their families do not…
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ACA Marketplace Sign-Ups Outpacing Last Year, Despite Sabotage
The 2018 open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace coverage is off to a fast start, with over 600,000 customers selecting plans in the first four days compared to 416,000 during the first five days of last year’s period. We don’t yet know what’s driving the increase and how signups during the open…
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CMS Guidance Increases Urgency for Congress to Extend CHIP Funding
Last week, the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) released an informational bulletin with guidance for states in the event they exhaust remaining CHIP funds before Congress acts. This is just another sign of how perilously close we are to seeing children’s coverage disrupted. And even if Washington can be counted on to eventually…
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Research Update: Affordability and Economic Security Thanks to Medicaid
CCF’s last research update focused on families’ increase in economic security after the Medicaid expansion. This week, I would like to build on the research presented last time. Below are two additional studies that examine links between affordable, comprehensive health care and financial security. And of course, the role of Medicaid in it all. Health…
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CMS Administrator’s Proposed Changes to Medicaid: Reprehensible
Earlier this week, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, gave a major policy address to the National Association of Medicaid Directors. After invoking Hubert Humphrey on the moral tests of government – her office is in the Humphrey building — she characterized expanding Medicaid coverage to uninsured adults without…
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New Bikeshare Options for our Annual Georgetown CCF Conference
If you’ve been to the Annual Georgetown CCF Conference for children’s groups here in Washington, DC over the past few years, you might have come on our informal evening bicycle tour of the Potomac and national monuments. Here at CCF, we are proponents of healthy children and families, and that includes plenty of exercise –…
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West Virginia CHIP Board Votes to End CHIP on February 28 if Congress Fails to Fund CHIP in Time
Yesterday, the West Virginia CHIP Board reckoned with the stark reality of the consequences of Congressional inaction on CHIP. Faced with running out of federal funds in March, the Board determined that available funding will only cover children through February. The board plans to notify families in early January that the program will close on…
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State Oversight in Marketplace Open Enrollment More Important Than Ever
We’re in the midst of open enrollment (OE) for 2018 coverage in the marketplaces, and there’s considerable concern that the many challenges accompanying this OE will result in far fewer people enrolled in coverage. Open enrollment this year will be just half the time of previous open enrollment periods – 6 weeks, beginning November 1st –…
