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The legal fight over the Trump administration’s most aggressive play to cut Medicaid, explained
Vox By: Dylan Scott Medicaid work requirements will be in federal court on Thursday, as conservative Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and the Trump administration argue they should be allowed to tie poor people’s health insurance to work requirements or other “community engagement.” … Adding to the confusion, Bevin didn’t even really need to issue that…
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Trump Budget Includes Harmful Medicaid Drug Rebate Proposal, Several Sound Improvements
On March 11, the Trump Administration released its fiscal year 2020 budget. As my colleague Andy Schneider has written, the Administration budget plan would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, impose a per capita cap or block grant on the rest of the Medicaid program, require all states to adopt onerous work reporting requirements…
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CMS Announces Reorganization of Offices Overseeing Medicaid and CHIP
CMS recently announced a reorganization of the regional and central offices that oversee Medicaid and CHIP. It’s too soon to tell how the re-org will impact the day-to-day operations of Medicaid and CHIP, but the federal register notice says that the new structure will support consistent policy implementation and accountability. You may not have even…
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Administration’s Budget Proposal Includes $1.5 Trillion in Medicaid Cuts
[Editor’s Note: Read about the Trump Administration’s budget proposal for FY2021.] Here they go again. Last year, the Administration proposed a budget that would have cut federal Medicaid spending by $1.4 trillion over ten years. In the budget released this morning, the Administration proposes to cut federal Medicaid spending by $1.5 trillion over the next…
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How Does Losing Medicaid Help You Get a Job?
The Nation By: Bryce Covert By the time Steven Mitchell made it—by foot—to the Churches Joint Council on Human Needs food pantry in Benton, Arkansas, on a cold November day, his two hernias had him limping in pain. A few weeks before, he had received a letter from the state’s Department of Human Services informing…
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Child Enrollment in Public Health Programs Fell by 600K Last Year
Stateline By: Michael Ollove The number of kids enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — two government health plans for the poor — fell by nearly 600,000 in the first 11 months of 2018, a precipitous drop that has puzzled and alarmed many health policy analysts, while several states say it…
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What States Can Do to Help Babies and Their Families Thrive
Each baby is born with limitless potential, and anyone who has ever held a baby has felt the enormity of opportunity ahead. But as ZERO TO THREE and Child Trends’ 50-state assessment of the state of babies in the United States finds, some babies come into the world facing more obstacles than opportunities. One in…
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Why are more families losing children’s health insurance coverage?
The Inquirer By: David Rubin At the start of each new year, I find myself reflecting on how my pediatric practice is changing. Now that I have been practicing for more than 20 years, one of the biggest developments is that some of the children I cared for at the start of my career are…
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CMS Rejects MACPAC’s Advice To Pause Arkansas Work Requirements
Inside Health Policy The Trump administration is rejecting a recommendation from the federal Medicaid advisory commission to pause Arkansas’ controversial program of Medicaid work requirements, CMS Administrator Seema Verma told the commission’s chairwoman in a letter obtained by Inside Health Policy. The decision allows Arkansas to continue imposing the program on tens of thousands of additional…
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Maryland made a plan to help people leaving prison get drug treatment — but it never used it
The Baltimore Sun By: Meredith Cohn Fatal drug overdoses had been climbing for years when Maryland health officials decided to target a particularly vulnerable group: Those leaving prison or jail. They have high rates of addiction, but low rates of insurance for treatment. So the state sought federal permission to skip the usual paperwork to…
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Nevada Medicaid’s Pediatric Benefits Promote Healthy Development for Children
Below is a description of sources used for data reported on the factsheet, “Nevada Medicaid’s Pediatric Benefits Promote Healthy Development for Children,” provided by Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF). EPSDT Services Section 1905(r)(1)(B) of the Social Security Act. For a full description of EPSDT coverage, see Department of Health and Human Services,…
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Child Health Providers and Advocates Ask HHS Secretary to Reject Work Requirements for Low-Income Parents
Today Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families joined over 50 other national health care provider, research and consumer groups focused on children and families to send a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar raising concerns about the harm of work requirements for children and families, particularly in states that have not expanded Medicaid. The…
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A Tribute to Rob Restuccia, a True Health Care Hero
Over the weekend our longtime friend and colleague Rob Restuccia succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Whether his years at the helm of the national consumer advocacy organization Community Catalyst or his work on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, or many other policy debates, Rob was at the center of the effort to extend the benefits of…
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Child Enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP Down 600k Children in 2018
After CMS released October 2018 Medicaid and CHIP data, we reported that child enrollment was down by more than half a million children in the first 10 months of 2018. So needless to say, we were anxious to see the final November 2018 numbers, which were just released. In November 2018, child enrollment in Medicaid…
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Drug company CEOs admit prescription prices are too high. But will they change?
PBS News Hour The CEOs of seven pharmaceutical giants gathered before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday to answer lawmakers’ questions about why U.S. drug prices are high — and rising. … In the hearing, pharmaceutical executives blamed drug rebates for muddling market prices and artificially inflating costs. They hammered the pharmaceutical benefits managers, often…
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How to Assess the Impact of Health Coverage Expansion Proposals on Children
With the outcome of the Congressional midterm elections, the risk of federal legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and impose a cap on federal Medicaid funding has receded. Some federal policymakers are instead renewing focus on how to again make substantial progress towards the goal of universal coverage. This need has become…
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The Questions to Ask When Assessing the Impact of Coverage Expansion Proposals on Children
Sixth in a series of briefs on the future of children’s health care coverage Introduction With the outcome of the November midterm elections, the risk of federal legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and impose a cap on federal Medicaid funding has receded. Instead, there is renewed attention by some policymakers…
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Medicaid and State Budgets: Checking the Facts (Yet Again)
It’s that time of year again. Estimators publish their projections of Medicaid spending, journalists report on the projections, and policymakers decide whether and how they want to act. Medicaid covers up to 35 million low-income children, so getting these projections right, and explaining them correctly, is hugely important for public understanding of the program. Unfortunately,…
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Estimated CHIP Enrollment by Congressional District, 2017
The following workbook estimates the number of children ever enrolled in CHIP in 2017 by congressional district. See the notes tab in the workbook for information on data sources and methodology. View the 2016 workbook.
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Thousands lose coverage from Medicaid work requirements: New procedures causing confusion
The Nation’s Health By: Kim Krisberg In January 2018, federal officials released guidance on instituting Medicaid work requirements — an unprecedented move for the low-income health program. A year later, work requirements are pending or approved in more than a dozen states, advocates are fighting the rules in court and thousands have lost health coverage. ……
