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Another Place for Medicaid Attention: Young Children’s Social Emotional Development
Early childhood mental health is not as widely understood and does not look the same as mental health challenges for older children or adults. But there’s good news: effective, evidence-informed, and promising interventions that support infant and toddlers’ mental health are available. That’s where Medicaid can help. Our latest paper, Using Medicaid to Ensure the…
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New Report Shows Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reversed Course
[Editor’s Note: For the most recent Georgetown University Center for Children and Families report on children’s health coverage and an interactive version of the report with state-by-state data, click here.] For the past eight years, CCF has published a report tracking health coverage rates for children across the country. This year, for the first time…
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Midterm Elections Improve Prospects for Medicaid Expansion in North Carolina
The loss of Republican supermajorities in the North Carolina House and Senate in the recent midterms was the first sign of an improving climate for expanding Medicaid in the Tarheel state. Now when Democratic Governor Roy Cooper exercises his veto power, Democrats in the legislature can block legislation – including the annual state budget bill…
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Surprise! CMS Approves Kentucky Work Requirement Waiver Again
Yesterday, CMS reapproved the Kentucky work requirement waiver. The reapproval comes less than two weeks after Congress’s Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) wrote a letter to the Secretary of HHS asking for a pause in disenrollments resulting from the Arkansas work requirement waiver, less than a week after Arkansas announced that over…
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Using Medicaid to Ensure the Healthy Social and Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers
Part I: Executive Summary Each child’s social-emotional development underpins overall development and greatly influences his or her lifelong trajectory. Infants and toddlers experience a period of rapid brain development marked by great possibility and vulnerability, depending on their family and community contexts. The first years of life are particularly crucial to a child’s development of…
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Nation’s Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reverses Course
Introduction For the first time since comparable data was first collected in 2008, the nation’s steady progress in reducing the number of children without health insurance reversed course. The number of uninsured children under age 19 nationwide increased by an estimated 276,000 to about 3.9 million (3,925,000) in 2017, according to newly-available data from the…
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Advocates Lambast Growing Number of Uninsured in Arkansas Due to Work Rules
AJMC Managed Markets Network By: Allison Inserro Arkansas said this week it removed more than 12,000 people from its Medicaid expansion program over the past 3 months for not complying with work and community engagement requirements, and another 6000 are at risk of losing their health coverage by December. On Friday, the executive director of…
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Louisiana Medicaid Audit Report Misses the Mark
A recent legislative audit of the adult Medicaid expansion in Louisiana compares apples and oranges to arrive at a conclusion that millions of dollars were paid on behalf of Medicaid enrollees who did not qualify. But is it accurate to characterize these individuals as ineligible? No, not when you consider the flexibility states have in…
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12K have lost Arkansas Medicaid coverage over work rule
The Associated Press By: Andrew DeMillo Arkansas removed more than 12,000 people from its expanded Medicaid program over the past three months for not complying with a new work requirement, the state said Thursday. Another 6,000 are at risk of losing coverage by December if they don’t find work. The state Department of Human Services…
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Arkansas Data are Clear – Trump’s Medicaid Policy is a Dangerous Failure
The primary focus of the Trump Administration’s approach to Medicaid has been to encourage states to impose work and “community engagement” requirements on adults in Medicaid through Section 1115 Medicaid waivers. As regular readers of SayAhhh! know, Arkansas is the first state in the nation to impose these new rules on its Medicaid expansion policy.…
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How to maintain your perspective as Trump plays the immigration card (again)
Arizona Republic By: Linda Valdez What’s not legitimate? The scare tactics Trump uses to justify treating hard-working men and women – and their children – like a big-time threat to our jobs, our homes, our language and our way of life. One of those tactics is a proposed rule change by the Department of Homeland…
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Medicaid Transformation in NC: Three Priorities to Watch
By Ciara Zachary Seventy percent of the people enrolled in Medicaid and NC Health Choice in North Carolina are children. So as the state’s Medicaid transformation process continues to meet major milestones, NC Child is closely monitoring this complex undertaking for its impacts on children. Here’s a brief update on where we are in the…
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The Fight for Grade-Level Reading podcast episode 3: Elisabeth Burak on Medicaid and CHIP
Sarasota Herald-Tribune By: Brian Ries We talk to Elisabeth Burak, Senior Fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families, where she directs projects focused on young children’s development. Burak has more than 15 years of experience in public policy to support low-income children and families at national and state…
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New Policy Brief asks: “Why are Tennessee moms and babies dying at such a high rate?”
Tennessee Justice Center’s recent policy brief focuses on rising rates of infant and maternal mortality in Tennessee. When I saw the state’s dismal outcomes in the 2018 America’s Health Rankings Health of Women and Children report, I immediately wanted to learn why moms and babies were dying at higher and higher rates in Tennessee. According…
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Five Ways the Midterms Changed Healthcare
Medscape Medical News By: Marcia Frellick Tuesday’s midterm elections resulted in changes in leadership and passage or denial of ballot initiatives that have implications for healthcare nationwide. Here are five of the major areas affected. 1. Medicaid. The red states of Nebraska, Idaho, and Utah approved Medicaid expansion. … Joan Alker, MPhil, research professor at…
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How Proposed Changes to Public Charge Would Impact Children in Immigrant Communities
Editor’s Note, 10/15/19: Several federal courts have issued nationwide injunctions blocking implementation of the proposed changes to the public charge rule. We will update any further developments. Introduction The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed regulation that would radically change U.S. immigration policy. The changes would ripple through nearly every aspect of the…
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How Medicaid’s networks could change
Axios Vitals Newsletter By: Sam Baker Health insurers that run state Medicaid programs must have adequate networks of doctors so people don’t have to travel far. But that may change under a new federal proposal, Axios’ Bob Herman reports. How it works: An Obama-era rule required states to come up with “time and distance” standards…
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Voters expand Medicaid in red states; gridlock in Congress likely to protect Obamacare
USA Today By: Ken Alltucker With Democrats capturing the House of Representatives and Republicans strengthening control of the Senate, experts predict gridlock will likely block major changes to the Affordable Care Act. But access to health care and spiraling medical costs remain top-of-mind issues for consumers and state lawmakers, even in traditionally conservative states. Voters…
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Steve Ferrara, Greg Stanton tout different health care paths in 9th Congressional District
Arizona Republic By: Rachel Leingang In Arizona’s 9th Congressional District, a Republican doctor is running against the Democratic former mayor of Phoenix in a race has been dominated by their disagreements over the future of health care. Steve Ferrara, a doctor who works at the Phoenix VA and the county hospital, wants to adjust the…
