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  • Medicaid/CHIP Coverage in Alabama Congressional Districts, 2023

    [Note: data reflect boundaries in effect for the 118th Congress. Districts in Alabama were redrawn for the 119th Congress but are not depicted below.]

  • Webinar: Federal Medicaid Cuts & What’s at Stake for State Budgets and Families

    The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) held a special virtual session of our new Child Medicaid Policy Institute (CMPI) on Tuesday, December 17 at 2 pm ET. What: CMPI seeks to educate health advocates, providers, other stakeholders, and policymakers on the fundamentals of the Medicaid program and its importance for children, families, and…

  • Are Children Receiving the Full Protection of Medicaid’s Pediatric Benefit Package?

    Medicaid covers over 30 million children, or about 40 percent of all children. Medicaid covers disproportionately large shares of low-income children, children of color, and children with special health care needs. Medicaid law and policy necessarily impact children, oftentimes children who would be uninsured or underinsured without it. Children with Medicaid coverage are entitled to…

  • Medicaid/CHIP Coverage by Congressional District, 2023

    Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas…

  • New Report Documents State Action on Maternal Mental Health, Medicaid Cuts Could Undermine Progress

    Last month, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health (“Policy Center”) released its second annual report highlighting state efforts to improve maternal mental health outcomes. Over the past few years, maternal mental health has gained momentum at both the federal and state levels. The report evaluates 2024 state legislation introduced on maternal mental health care,…

  • Webinar: How Medicaid Works & What’s at Stake in 2025

    The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families held a special session of our new Child Medicaid Policy Institute on Tuesday, December 10. The Child Medicaid Policy Institute seeks to educate child health advocates, providers, stakeholders, and policymakers on the fundamentals of the Medicaid program and its importance for children, families, and other low-income individuals.…

  • Federal Funding Cuts to Medicaid May Trigger Automatic Loss of Health Coverage for Millions of Residents of Certain States

    Despite virtually no discussion of Medicaid during the election, Medicaid is facing proposals for significant reductions in federal funding. My colleague Edwin Park has already detailed some of the discussion around these cuts – which are being considered in service of facilitating an extension of tax breaks, the majority of which would go to the…

  • How Covering Adults Through Medicaid Expansion Helps Children

    Opponents of Medicaid expansion often argue that enacting expansion will harm “traditional” Medicaid beneficiaries including children. This brief cites studies finding the opposite is true. Studies have documented multiple positive effects for children of expanding coverage for parents and other adults including higher child coverage rates, lower rates of infant mortality and higher birthweights, and…

  • Congressional Republican Leaders Start to Show Their Hand: Draconian Medicaid Cuts on the Agenda for Next Year 

    I have been warning for months that Medicaid would be on the chopping block if there is a second term of the Trump Administration and if Congressional Republicans win House and Senate majorities in 2025.  That is because the Project 2025 blueprint, the fiscal year 2025 Republican Study Committee budget plan, and the fiscal year…

  • CMS Approves Five More States to Adopt Medicaid Multi-Year Continuous Coverage for Young Children As Threats to Coverage Loom

    Yesterday, CMS approved a set of another five state 1115 waiver demonstration applications to adopt multi-year continuous eligibility for children in Medicaid. Four states (Hawaii, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania) were approved to adopt continuous eligibility for children in Medicaid from birth to age 6; Colorado was approved to implement for children up to age…

  • Transparency in Medicaid Managed Care:  CMS Posts Annual MLR Reports

    On November 1, CMS posted on its website Medical Loss Ratios (MLRs) for individual Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) in 2018, 2019, and 2020.  These data come from the MLR Summary Reports that states are required to submit to CMS.  This CMS action follows the posting on July 15 of the first tranche of Managed…

  • Medicaid Managed Care:  Results of the PHE Unwinding for the Big Five in Q3 2024

    Another quarter, another round of earnings reports from the “Big Five.”  The story of Q3 continues the basic narrative of Q1 and Q2.  For all but one of the companies that dominate the Medicaid managed care market, net Medicaid enrollment continued to decline, driven primarily by the PHE unwinding.  There is one new wrinkle, however.…

  • New Brief: States Should Act to Ensure All Former Foster Youth Receive Medicaid Continuity of Coverage

    A group often overlooked in Medicaid coverage conversations is foster youth. While they are a small segment of the population, youth aging out of foster care have higher physical and mental health care needs than their peers, but often lack health insurance due to high costs. The authors of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took into…

  • Ensuring Continuity of Medicaid Coverage for Former Foster Youth

    Youth transitioning out of foster care are at both a challenging and pivotal time of their lives. Having health coverage through Medicaid provides security and stability as they make the steep climb to adulthood, often on their own. The authors of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took into account the needs of former foster youth and the fact…

  • CMS Highlights EPSDT Policies and Strategies for Improving Care for Children with Behavioral Health Needs

    As discussed in our blog series on the CMS’s new EPSDT guidance, the 57 page state health official letter lays out a number of policies and strategies to help states meet their EPSDT requirements under Medicaid – including care for children with behavioral health needs. As you may recall, in 2022, CMS released an informational…

  • Georgia’s Much Vaunted Medicaid Waiver “Pathways to Coverage” Has Turned Into “Pathways to Profit” for Consultants

    As of June 2024, a paltry 4,231 Georgians were enrolled in Georgia’s section 1115 Medicaid waiver, according to reports from the state recently posted by federal CMS. Data from the newly released reports confirm that Governor Kemp’s “Pathways to Coverage” alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion – approved during the last year of…

  • House Budget Proposal Seeks to Eliminate Healthy Start, a Proven Program to Reduce Maternal and Infant Mortality

    By Kay Johnson For more than 30 years, the federal Healthy Start program has been investing in community-based solutions to reduce maternal and infant mortality in communities with infant mortality rates at least 1.5 times the U.S. national average. At a time when many are rightly calling for more community and family engagement to reduce…

  • A Look at Maternal Health Legislation in the 118th Congress

    By: Tanesha Mondestin and Kay Johnson Maternal health continues to be a priority for many Members of Congress. We previously scanned maternal health legislation that Members of Congress may consider in the 2022 “Lame Duck” session. We revisited this topic this election year to consider proposals pending in the 118th Congress as their chance of…

  • Congressional Appropriations Proposals Cut Maternal Health Investments

    By: Elisabeth Wright Burak, Kay Johnson, and Tanesha Mondestin In 2022, the maternal mortality rate for 2022 decreased to 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 32.9 in 2022. Black and Indigenous mothers have maternal mortality rates much higher than other racial/ethnic groups. And beyond the narrower category of maternal mortality…