2017
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Governor LePage’s Medicaid Proposal Would Harm Low-Income Mainers
Governor Paul LePage’s proposal for harsh changes in the state’s Medicaid program, known as MaineCare, would restrict access to health care for many low-income Mainers. Maine is one of 19 states that haven’t adopted the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) Medicaid expansion, leaving most poor adults without a coverage option. The governor’s proposal would make it…
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Who Will Succeed Tom Price?
The Washington Examiner By: Philip Klein, Robert King, and Kimberly Leonard States start to prepare for the worst with CHIP. State officials are worried about the future of the program, despite lawmaker assurances they will reauthorize it. … Nevada expects to run out of funds by late November or early December and may have to…
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Which States Are Hit Hardest By Failure To Fund Children’s Health Program?
Talking Points Memo By: Alice Ollstein Over the weekend, Congress allowed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers nearly 9 million children in low-income families, to lapse—failing to pass a reauthorization by Saturday’s deadline after spending most of the year attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act. … Joan Alker, the executive…
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CHIP Covers 9 Million Kids. Its Funding Expired this Weekend
Vox By: Sarah Kliff In mid-September, key senators struck a deal to extend the budget for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers 9 million low- and middle-income kids. Other senators were making progress on a small package to stabilize the Affordable Care Act. But all of that work ground to a halt as the…
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What’s Next for HHS After Tom Price’s Resignation
Politico Pulse Dan Diamond … States say they’ll run out of CHIP funds faster than projected, Georgetown CCF’s Tricia Brooks warns. Newsletter links to Tricia’s blog. … Read newsletter here.
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Who Are the Uninsured Adults?
Last week we posted a piece about the shrinking pool of uninsured adults, based on a Health Affairs study showing that the rate of adults without insurance dropped from 16 percent to 7 percent in states that took the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Hidden at the end of this Health Affairs study, is a…
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Advocates for Children’s Health Insurance Program Await Action from Congress
The Morning Call By: Laura Olson As Congress debated another attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act last week, legislators failed to meet a deadline to pay for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, creating uncertainty for a program that draws bipartisan support nationally and in Pennsylvania. The 176,000 children enrolled in Pennsylvania — including nearly…
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Iowa’s Proposed Medicaid Cut Could Signal New Republican Strategy
The Associated Press By: Barbara Rodriguez Iowa is seeking permission from President Donald Trump’s administration to cut a key benefit for all its Medicaid recipients, a move that could foreshadow other state-level efforts to change the safety net program after Congress repeatedly failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Federal health officials could decide soon…
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CHIP, Other Federal Safety Net Programs Went Over a Cliff this Weekend
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By: Kate Giammarise and Sean Hamill Because Congress failed to act in time, multiple safety net funding programs will head over a fiscal cliff this weekend, including those that provide for children’s health care, rural hospitals, and Medicaid and uninsured patients. But efforts in the House are expected to begin next week…
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Children’s Healthcare to Run Out of Money
Death and Taxes Magazine By: Jennifer M. Wood For months, the GOP has repeatedly tried — and repeatedly failed — to write a healthcare bill that will allow them to fulfill Donald Trump’s campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. In the midst of all this scheming that could ultimately see 23 million Americans without…
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9M Kids’ Health Insurance At Risk As Congress Lets CHIP Expire
White House Patch By: Cody Fenwick As Republicans scrambled for one last-ditch attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare before the Sept. 30 deadline, a vital program that provides health care coverage for millions of kids across the country has come to the brink of expiration. Funding for CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, will start…
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The Health 202: Here’s How Tom Price Could be Spending his Time
The Washington Post By: Paige Winfield Cunningham With repeal-and-replace stalled indefinitely in Congress — which has hurt prospects for any smaller legislative tweaks — the second bucket may be the only opportunity that remains if Trump and his appointees want to make their mark on health care. Part of the delay could be because Price…
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Congress Lets CHIP Expire, and States Scramble
Governing By: Mattie Quinn Congress missed the Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), sending states that rely on that money scrambling to figure out how to pay for it. U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden introduced a bipartisan bill last month that would have extended funding for…
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Insurance Coverage for More than 22,000 Low-income Arizona Kids in Jeopardy
Arizona Central By: Ken Alltucker More than 22,000 Arizona children in low- and moderate-income families get health insurance through a federal program that Congress failed to reauthorize by a Sept. 30 deadline. Those children won’t immediately lose their health insurance because the program’s funding will extend through the end of the year. … “Some states…
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Cutting Medicaid Unpopular Among Republicans, Democrats and Independents
I’ve written before about how popular the Medicaid program has become and how firmly opposed the public is to cutting Medicaid. One unanticipated outcome of the last two months of debate on in Congress around bills that would have cut Medicaid substantially in the process of “repealing” the Affordable Care Act has been the willingness…
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Graham-Cassidy: A Triple Whammy for Children and Families
When Senators Graham (R-SC) and Cassidy (R-LA) released their proposal to “repeal and replace” the ACA, we had our doubts about just how helpful it would be for children and families, but wanted to wait for the official word from CBO. Now we know. CBO has issued a “Preliminary Analysis” that leaves no doubt that…
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Health Care Debate is a ‘Wake-up Call’ for Medicaid Coverage
Columbia Journalism Review By: Trudy Lieberman Since the beginning of the year, many local news outlets have provided robust reporting on Medicaid, which has bolstered reader interest in the program. “In the course of the debate, it’s become clear that Medicaid has tremendous public support,” says Shannon Buckingham, vice president for communications at the Center…
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Congress Leaves Children’s Health Care Hanging: What Educators Need to Know
Education Week By: Alyson Klein Congress is on the verge of leaving town for the weekend without extending the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which expires Saturday. The move could put a financial strain on states—and eventually jeopardize coverage for the roughly 9 million children covered by the program. And it’s not good news for district…
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Medicaid Expansion Enrollees Drive Down the Uninsured Rate, Cost Less to Cover
The Medicaid expansion has been particularly successful at covering uninsured adults. According to new research in Health Affairs that used data from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey, expansion states saw a decrease in their rate of uninsured adults from about 16% during the third quarter of 2013 to 7% in the first quarter of 2017.…
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States Say They Will Run Out of CHIP Funds Faster than Projected; Will Congress Act in Time?
Ten states project they will run out of CHIP funds before the end of 2017 according to a new brief released by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), based on responses from 42 states during the KFF’s annual Medicaid budget survey. The ten states are: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Utah.…
