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CBO Estimates Indicate Proposed Drug Rebate Safe Harbor Rule Would Increase Federal and State Medicaid Costs by $10.5 Billion Over Next Decade
On May 2, as part of its new baseline, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued an analysis of the impact on Medicaid of the Trump Administration’s proposed rule to eliminate the safe harbor in the federal anti-kickback law for rebates negotiated by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) on behalf of Medicaid managed care plans and Medicare…
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Medicaid Managed Care Transparency: What Can Quality Data Do?
Earlier this week the data transparency door to Medicaid managed care opened. Not as wide as some of us would hope, but wide enough to start a detailed conversation about the performance of individual MCOs on quality. It happened at a briefing sponsored by the California Health Care Foundation and took the form of a…
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Medicaid Work Requirements Hit Roadblocks
Pew Stateline By: Michael Ollove Toward the end of 2018, the Trump administration seemed to be marching briskly toward its goal of requiring able-bodied adults in Medicaid to prove they had jobs to participate in the public health plan for the poor. But while a number of states still are adopting work requirements, the path…
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Even many who support Trump’s drug rebate policy don’t support it in Medicaid
STATE By: Nicholas Florko Medicaid advocates have a lot of opinions about the Trump administration’s rebate rule. Namely, that it makes no sense. The Trump administration’s controversial proposal to eliminate the drug rebates that pharmacy middlemen and insurers use to negotiate down the price of certain drugs doesn’t stop with that massive change — it…
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After falling for years, the number of uninsured children is rising
Marketplace By: Kimberly Adams The percentage of uninsured children in the U.S. has been in decline for years. But a new study by the University of Minnesota finds that it’s moving upward again. The rate increased across demographic groups, and the study estimates that some 4 million U.S. kids are now uninsured. Declining rates of…
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New CBO Baseline Expects Number of Uninsured to Rise by 5 Million Over Next Decade
On May 2, the Congressional Budget Office issued its new baseline, including health coverage projections for the period 2019-2029. CBO expects the number of non-elderly uninsured people nationwide will increase by 5 million over the next ten years, from 30 million in calendar year 2019 to 35 million in calendar year 2029. That is in…
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Pediatricians and CCF Release 2019 State Snapshots on Children’s Health Coverage
We’ve continued the tradition we started three years ago with our colleagues at the American Academy of Pediatrics to create state snapshots that focus on the valuable role Medicaid and CHIP fill for children. These snapshots provide details on who’s covered by Medicaid and CHIP in each state and how Medicaid/CHIP fit into the overall…
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Why is Florida’s Medicaid Work Reporting Proposal the Harshest in the Country for Kids and Families?
A few weeks ago I blogged about Florida’s bill being the worst I have seen nationwide. The bill’s sponsor definitely didn’t read the blog (as was made clear during the House floor debate), nor did he seem concerned about the many valid criticisms raised during the debate, and the bill passed the House last week…
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State Medicaid and CHIP Snapshots, 2019
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) created factsheets underscoring the importance of Medicaid in providing coverage for children in all 51 states (including the District of Columbia). Sources are available. Previous snapshots can be found here.
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Nebraska Residents Will Have to Wait for Medicaid Expansion While Governor Puts More Obstacles in Path to Coverage
Writer George Orwell would love the Nebraska Governor’s complex plan to implement the simple expansion of Medicaid health coverage passed by Nebraska voters in 2018 that would help an estimated 95,000 of the state’s residents gain coverage. In Orwell’s book “1984”, the fictional state of Oceania asked citizens to accept opposing ideas as both being…
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Medicaid and Early Childhood Home Visiting Collaboration: A Washington Perspective
Early in Washington’s Medicaid and early childhood home visiting collaboration, it was clear we needed a common understanding of home visiting services compared to home-based Medicaid services. As it happens, there are some significant differences! Although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) does not authorize home visiting models in their entirety, they do…
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More Sabotage: Trump Administration Cuts Marketplace Premium Subsidies
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently issued the Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2020, which finalized a harmful provision first proposed in January that would effectively reduce the amount of premium tax credits available to purchase marketplace plans over time. Like prior Administration actions that have sabotaged the marketplaces, this would…
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New Data Show Widespread Decline in Child Enrollment in Medicaid/CHIP Coverage in 2018
We’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of final Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data for 2018, which was expected to be posted almost a month ago. The wait is finally over but not our concerns about what’s happening. In the meantime, more stories about eligibility system issues in a handful of states and states conducting more…
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Updated CBO Estimates Find Uninsured Increased by 1.4 Million Between 2016 and 2018
Recently, as part of materials explaining the new version of its health microsimulation model, the Congressional Budget Office issued updated estimates for the number of non-elderly people without health coverage over the past four years. According to the CBO estimates, the number of uninsured people under age 65 rose from 27.5 million in fiscal year…
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We’re investigating how insurance gaps endanger mothers. This is why.
Vox By: Julia Belluz and Nina Martin The only way to solve America’s maternal mortality problem is to fix its insurance problem. That’s the clear takeaway from a widening pool of research. The majority of deaths involving pregnancy and childbirth aren’t happening in the delivery room, they’re happening after a woman has a baby —…
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Texas removes thousands of children from Medicaid each month due to red tape, records show
Texas Tribune By: Elizabeth Byrne Katherine Edmundson didn’t know her 7-year-old son was off Medicaid until she took him to the dentist for his annual cleaning in February. An employee at the front desk told her that his coverage was invalid and that her son couldn’t be seen that day. … Cortez sees the issue as…
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Centene CEO Expects Divestitures in Two States for WellCare Deal
Bloomberg Law By: John Tozzi Centene Corp. Chief Executive Officer Michael Neidorff said the proposed acquisition of WellCare Health Plans Inc. will require unloading health plans in two states with limited competition in the Medicaid market. “There are two states, Nebraska and Missouri, where there’s three plans, and WellCare’s one, we’re one,” Neidorff said in…
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How Medicaid and CHIP Can Support Student Success through Schools
Seventh in a series of briefs on the future of children’s health care coverage Summary Recognizing that a healthy student is a better student, education and health officials have begun working closely in the past few years to integrate their efforts. Recent changes to federal education law, new grant programs and revised Medicaid rules have…
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Thousands Could Lose Coverage Under Proposed Medicaid Work Requirements
Health News Florida By: Julio Ochoa More than 100,000 low-income parents could lose health care coverage under a Medicaid work-requirement bill being considered in the Florida Legislature, experts estimate. Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families based its Florida prediction on the impact of similar policies in other states that resulted in roughly 20 percent of…
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National health policy expert Adam Searing
NC Policy Watch By: Clayton Henkel National health policy expert Adam Searing on why it’s long past time for North Carolina to join the majority of states and close the Medicaid coverage GAP. Searing with the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families also discusses President Trump’s latest promise to repeal the…
