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Unpacking the Unwinding: Medicaid to Marketplace Coverage Transitions
By Emma Walsh-Alker Background As Medicaid unwinding draws to a close, millions of people have had to find new health coverage options, many of them through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces. What do we know about how they have fared, and whether state efforts to smooth coverage transitions have been successful? Following the April 2023…
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Webinar: Engaging the Health Sector in Nonpartisan Voter Registration Efforts
National Voter Registration Day is a time to empower communities and ensure that every voice is heard. With their trusted roles and community presence, providers, enrollment assisters, community health workers, and other health professionals are uniquely positioned to support voter registration efforts. This webinar will explore how the health sector can integrate nonpartisan voter registration…
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What State-Level Data is Available for the 988 Crisis Line?
As we wrote about earlier this summer, the national mental health crisis line, 988, recently celebrated its second anniversary and has received nearly 11 million contacts since June 2022. In recognition of National Suicide Prevention Month, we wanted to take some time to delve deeper into the state-level 988 data to see what it can…
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State Momentum, New Tools, Implementation Questions on Multi-Year Continuous Eligibility
CCF and its founders have long raised the opportunity to provide multi-year continuous eligibility for young children in Medicaid and CHIP, and have tracked its progress since Oregon and Washington first proposed the policy for children from birth to kindergarten in 2022. (See our latest map and resources to track state progress for children.) Our…
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As More States Allow Medicaid Reimbursements for New Pregnancy-Related Services, Promoting Access Remains a Challenge
KFF and the Health Management Associates (HMA) released their 23rd Annual Medicaid Budget Survey for State Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024 in collaboration with the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD). This year’s survey includes findings about challenges and strategies in expanding non-traditional pregnancy-related services, such as doula care. In the U.S., Medicaid finances more…
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Federal Judge in Tennessee Sides with Individuals Terminated from Medicaid, Finds Numerous Violations in Tennessee Medicaid Eligibility Process
“Poor, disabled, and otherwise disadvantaged Tennesseans should not require luck, perseverance, or zealous lawyering to receive healthcare benefits they are entitled to under the law.” How’s that for an opening sentence to a judicial opinion? That’s how an August 26, 2024, decision in a class action case called A.M.C. v. Stephen Smith started – and…
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Webinar: Using Section 1115 Demonstrations to Support Health-Related Social Needs for Prenatal to 3 Population
Over the past few years, states have been increasingly seeking to use Medicaid section 1115 demonstrations to cover health-related social needs (HRSN) services and supports. While many states are including pregnant and postpartum individuals and their children as eligible populations to receive these benefits, not all individuals within the pregnancy and postpartum eligibility group will…
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GOP Push to Make Trump Tax Cuts Permanent Makes Medicaid Top Target for Draconian Cuts
I have been writing about the many conservative and Congressional Republican plans and proposals to make draconian cuts to Medicaid. The centerpiece of several prominent plans — Project 2025, the Republican Study Committee fiscal year 2025 (RSC) budget and the fiscal year 2025 House GOP budget resolution — is to cap and deeply cut federal…
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CMS Gives Options to States with “Unusual Circumstances” to Extend Unwinding Renewals, Redistributing Renewals, and Deal with Pending Renewals
CMS has released new guidance for states that are not yet done with the unwinding. Due to the unprecedented nature of the unwinding – exacerbated by workforce challenges and resulting in an uneven and unsustainable renewal volume in many states – CMS concludes that the unwinding constitutes an administrative emergency that justifies exceptions to the…
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North Carolina Finds Innovative New Way to Provide Families with Needed Medical Debt Relief
As a nonprofit health attorney over a decade ago I worked in North Carolina on pushing hospital systems to eliminate the practice of suing lower income patients for medical debt and associated abuses like pursuing liens against the houses of poor families. A Pulitzer-prize nominated newspaper series detailed the situation at the time in North…
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Approved and Pending Section 1115 Demonstrations to Provide Health-Related Social Need Services to Pregnant and Postpartum Individuals and Children
Last Updated August 28, 2024 States are increasingly seeking to leverage Medicaid to provide services and supports to address health-related social needs (HRSN) services and supports, particularly through section 1115 demonstration projects. Pregnant and postpartum individuals and children are key populations states are targeting in their efforts to cover HRSN services. Addressing unmet HRSN among…
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Future of Medicaid Likely Hinges on Election but Voters Are Not Yet Hearing About Candidates’ Views
By Joan Alker and Michael Perry We’ve worked on Medicaid policy and/or public opinion research for three decades now and have observed its growing importance as the backbone of our health care system – now covering approximately 80 million people — as well as its centrality to voters. Medicare and Social Security are often described…
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Biden Administration Proposes Rule To Ban Medical Debt From Credit Reporting
By Sheela Ranganathan and Maanasa Kona, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms Amidst the growing interest among policymakers to protect patients from medical debt and its negative downstream effects, in April 2023, the three credit reporting agencies (CRAs)—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—voluntarily agreed to stop reporting any medical debt under $500. This April, the Consumer Financial…
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Back-to-School Season is Key to Reconnecting Kids to Health Coverage
More than 5 million children have lost Medicaid coverage since states began the process of unwinding the pandemic continuous coverage protection. And recently released data from the National Health Insurance Survey (NHIS) for the first quarter of 2024 adds to our concerns that children are losing access to the health care they need to succeed.…
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New Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms Report Examines State Reforms of Prior Authorization
By Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms Faculty Health insurers’ use of prior authorization – a medical management tool requiring providers to seek the insurer’s approval before their patient receives a healthcare item or service – appears to be on the rise. While providers and patients raise concerns that prior authorization can inhibit patient…
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Birth Centers Offer Potential to Transform Maternity Care Through Community-Led Approaches that Focus on Families of Color
Last month the Commonwealth Fund highlighted the role of freestanding birth centers in Community-Led Approach to Transforming Maternity Care. Freestanding birth centers, which use a midwifery and wellness model, provide a choice for families to deliver outside of a hospital or their home. The U.S. hosts 415 freestanding birth centers in 40 states and Washington,…
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Medicaid Managed Care: Results of the PHE Unwinding for the Big Five in Q2 2024
The Q2 2024 earnings reports for the “Big Five” Medicaid managed care companies are in. They tell us that the PHE unwinding is winding down, but it’s still driving declines in Medicaid enrollment for the companies as a group. Here are the numbers. For the fifth consecutive quarter, beginning with Q2 2023, Medicaid enrollment for…
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Prominent Conservative/GOP Plans Share Common Priority: Medicaid Block Grants and Per Capita Caps
The Project 2025 blueprint, the fiscal year 2025 Republican Study Committee budget plan, and the fiscal year 2025 House budget resolution all propose draconian Medicaid cuts, with a centerpiece of capping and cutting federal Medicaid funding through block grants and/or per capita caps. Together, they signal that radically restructuring Medicaid would likely be a high…
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Community-Based Assistance Programs Support Applicants Where They Live and are a Gold Standard for Outreach
In this final installment of our series on Medicaid and CHIP outreach, we look at community-based assistance programs and resources in each state. Personalized assistance is critical to helping individuals and families find and access support to navigate confusing processes. CCF’s state outreach snapshot found state-supported outreach assistance programs in 30 states. Most, states with…
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GAO Releases Report on Federal Oversight and the Unwinding
There are many lessons to be learned from the unwinding, but among the top items on the list is the discovery that many states are not following federal renewal regulations that have been in place for more than a decade. Noting that, the Government Accountability Office (GOA) has released a report entitled: “Medicaid: Federal Oversight…
