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New 50-State Scorecard Exposes Missed Opportunities to Address Health Equity
Today The Commonwealth Fund released its annual scorecard on state health system performance. The report pulls together 49 indicators of health coverage, spending, quality and outcomes data to rank state health system performance. The accompanying state profiles provide additional context on the rankings, allowing states to get a comprehensive look at each state’s health care…
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Recession And Medicaid Budgets: What Are The Options?
Health Affairs By: Allan Baumgarten and Katherine Hempstead The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic dislocation are having a major impact on state budgets, particularly their Medicaid programs. Medicaid is inherently counter-cyclical, meaning that enrollment and spending increase in response to economic downturns. Medicaid enrollment will grow as workers lose jobs and coverage. Forecasts range from…
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Medicaid Work Requirements in Arkansas Didn’t Boost Employment
The Fiscal Times By: Michael Rainey A new study of work requirements for Medicaid recipients in Arkansas finds that they did nothing to increase employment but did impose substantial hardships on those who lost coverage as a result of the requirements… Joan Alker, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families who has…
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As Families Grapple with Schooling Stresses, Congress Must Act
Community Catalyst By: Eva Marie Stahl The Senate is on vacation until next week, having left Washington last month without delivering on the needed support that states and localities urgently require to support families and working people across the country who are living on the edge of financial and health disaster… In a recent survey,…
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Telehealth and Medicaid Expansion during COVID
RAC Monitor By: Knicole C. Emanuel Esq This article will explore Medicaid expansion during COVID-19. We all know that COVID has uprooted our lives. Telehealth is the new post-COVID norm, whereas it was in infancy pre-COVID. Perhaps the pandemic has spurred on Medicaid expansion as well. Everyone has more patients, and more ways to serve…
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Drug Manufacturers May Catch A Break On Medicaid Rebates For Opioid Treatment
Pink Pharma By: Sarah Karlin-Smith CMS believes a new law set to take effect this fall will prohibit Medicaid from collecting rebates on opioid use disorder treatments, Congressional offices and Medicaid stakeholders tell the Pink Sheet. Experts worry this interpretation could open the door for CMS to rule other drugs don’t qualify for rebates. ……
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New Report Underscores Urgent Need for Better Prenatal Health Care in Rural Areas
Earlier this summer, we called attention to the challenges that women in rural communities face during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and new research from Child Trends shows those challenges and health disparities extend to their young children as well. “Health Care Access for Infants and Toddlers in Rural Areas” found that rural infant and…
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Medicaid Managed Care for Children in Iowa: Not So Transparent
Is transparency an advantage for Medicaid managed care? Craig Kennedy, who heads Medicaid Health Plans of America, thinks so. (MHPA is a trade association for Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs)). In a recent op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Kennedy wrote: “… managed care provides more predictability and transparency than a fee-for-service system, in which…
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Allowing Pharmacists to Give Childhood Immunizations Undermines the Continuity of Care Provided by Pediatricians
This week, HHS announced that it will allow pharmacists to vaccinate children ages 3-18, superseding state laws to the contrary. On the surface, expanding access to childhood vaccinations may seem like a good move but not so fast. While the evidence is clear that childhood immunization rates have declined since the COVID pandemic hit, allowing…
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Covid-19 Vaccination Costs to Strain State Medicaid Programs
Bloomberg Law Getting millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses to the poorest adults in the country will require budget-conscious Medicaid plans to get creative with dwindling resources and a patchy health-care system not designed for mass inoculation. … But analysts say that increase probably won’t be enough for Medicaid plans to cover a new swath of…
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Pharmacists Can Give Routine Vaccinations to Children, HHS Says
Medpage Today A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decision allowing pharmacists to administer routine vaccinations to children during the COVID-19 pandemic is drawing mixed reviews from healthcare organizations. … Tricia Brooks, MBA, research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families in Washington, D.C., agreed with the AAP and AAFP. “This rule…
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New Report Provides State Policy Recommendations on How to Protect Consumers, Reduce Disparities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented threats to health and safety, and exacerbates existing inequities that continue to jeopardize the wellbeing of millions of Americans. As always, state health policy is critical to protecting consumers’ access to health care and addressing health disparities, particularly during the public health and economic crises brought by COVID-19. To help…
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CCF Welcomes Two New Members to Our Team
As we get ready for what is sure to be a challenging fall and winter, CCF is buoyed by the addition of two terrific women who joined our team on August 10th. CCF’s work continues to grow, both in our core Finish Line state project that has expanded into a network of 22 states, and…
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New Trump unemployment plan could squeeze state budgets, Medicaid rates
Modern Healthcare By: Rachel Cohrs If President Donald Trump’s plan to extend additional unemployment benefits further squeezes state budgets already ravaged by COVID-19, states could look to Medicaid as a way to cut costs. … If states have to come up with the funds somehow and don’t get additional assistance from Congress, the unemployment program…
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Over 200,000 Missourians will get covered with Medicaid expansion
American Medical Association An estimated 230,000 state residents—about 40% of those now uninsured in Missouri—will become eligible for Medicaid when enrollment begins next year. Missouri had an uninsured rate of 9.4% in 2018, which tied it with Utah for the 17th-highest rate in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. … Medicaid rolls are…
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KFF Brief Points to Need for Greater Investment in Consumer Assistance to Connect People to Health Coverage
This week, I’m reading findings from a new Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) brief about who uses consumer assistance programs established under the Affordable Care Act, who does and does not get help, why they seek assistance, and the difference the programs can make in consumers’ ability to obtain health coverage. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Consumer Assistance…
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District Court Finds Public Charge Rules are Against Public’s Best Interest but Appeals Court Limits Injunction to Three States
Editor’s Note: On September 9, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a final rule called Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility that will restore longstanding public charge policy effective December 23, 2022. Learn more in our factsheet. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended every aspect of our lives – health, work, home life, financial stability – and…
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Families with Young Children Need More Support During COVID-19, Surveys Show
Since April, the researchers at University of Oregon’s Center for Translational Neuroscience have been conducting a weekly national survey of households with children age 5 and under and the findings are clear: families with young children are stressed, and they’re increasingly facing hunger and unemployment. These challenges, the authors write, are, “negatively affecting caregiver well-being,…
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Major U.S. Health Insurers Report Big Profits, Benefiting From the Pandemic
New York Times By: Reed Abelson The nation’s leading health insurers are experiencing an embarrassment of profits. Some of the largest companies, including Anthem, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, are reporting second-quarter earnings that are double what they were a year ago. And while insurance profits are capped under the Affordable Care Act, with the requirement…
