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Missouri’s rural residents need better health care options
St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Aaron Griffin and Jen Bersdale There are people all across Missouri who are struggling to access health care, but the situation is much worse for those living in rural communities and small towns. While about a quarter of Missourians living in metro areas like St. Louis and Kansas City are uninsured,…
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Medicaid at the Ballot Box: More Coverage or More Barriers? (Part 2)
I blogged earlier about which of the 17 non-expansion states might see a change in their status on the horizon post election. Today I take a look at states that already have expanded (yes, I count Maine as an expansion state despite Governor LePage’s best efforts to thwart the will of the people), where we…
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Actual State Budget Impacts in Five States that Expanded Medicaid
Michigan, Montana, Louisiana, Colorado and Virginia have all expanded Medicaid. In each of these states, local analysis has shown expanding Medicaid has either been a positive for the state’s general fund revenues or has not resulted in any additional cost to the state. The reason is a combination of substantial state savings from Medicaid now…
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Medicaid at the 2018 Ballot Box: What to Look For (Part 1)
Next Tuesday (as usual) I will be staying up late to see what happens in the midterm elections. But for the first time in more than twenty years of working on Medicaid there will be so much to watch out for that will directly affect Medicaid! Today I will start with the 17 states that…
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Medicaid At Center Of Iowa Governor’s Race
Iowa Public Radio By: Katarina Sostaric Ads are flooding screens and mailboxes in Iowa calling the state’s move to privately-managed Medicaid a failure and a health care crisis. … The program start was delayed by federal regulators. Then complaints started mounting from patients who were denied services, and care providers who were taking financial hits…
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Oklahoma’s Rural Hospitals See A Lifeline In Medicaid Expansion
KGOU By: Jackie Fortier As more GOP-led states with vast rural areas consider Medicaid expansion, supporters in Oklahoma are watching. They say it’s the best solution to make sure rural hospitals survive. … Oklahoma’s rural hospitals are in trouble: Four have closed in the past eight years, and the hospital association estimates that half of rural to…
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Children’s hospitals bear largest brunt of Trump immigration crackdown
Modern Healthcare By: Virgil Dickson The immigration clampdown [by the federal government] could cause American children of undocumented parents to exit Medicaid, policy insiders say. … Medicaid directors as well as managed care plans disclosed via reports last week that they were noticing the first drop in Medicaid enrollment in a decade. Researchers tied that…
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New Guidance Reinterprets Section 1332 Waivers
On October 22, the Trump Administration issued new guidance related to section 1332 state waivers of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The guidance eviscerates the existing statutory requirements for affordability, comprehensiveness and coverage that section 1332 waivers must satisfy to receive federal approval. As a result, as other analysts have pointed out (here…
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Trump Administration Hands States Another Tool for Dismantling Preexisting Condition Protections
Last week, the Trump administration issued long-anticipated guidance regarding the Affordable Care Act’s Section 1332 “innovation waiver” program. The release rebrands and creatively reimagines the ACA program (they’re now “State Relief and Empowerment” waivers), breaking dramatically with past policy and, arguably, with the statute it purports to interpret. In the administration’s view, the ACA permits states to…
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Shepherd’s Hope and Other Free Clinics Are Making Up for Florida’s Decision to Not Expand Medicaid
90.7 WMFE By: Danielle Prieur Healthcare is one of the most important things for Floridians this election. That’s according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll. While voters decide on which candidate has the best plan, free clinics bear the brunt of Florida’s uninsured. … Shepherd’s Hope serves uninsured patients in Orange and Seminole Counties. And…
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Will Ron DeSantis’ or Andrew Gillum’s health care plan cover more people? Experts weigh in.
Tampa Bay Times By: Emily L. Mahoney During last week’s final Florida governor’s debate between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, an ugly back-and-forth over alleged ethical lapses grabbed headlines. It also overshadowed what might have otherwise been the news of the night: DeSantis announced he had uploaded his long-awaited health care plan to…
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Advocates Have a Key Role to Play Encouraging Early Childhood Sector to Leverage Medicaid to Meet Children’s Developmental Needs
Medicaid and early childhood care providers, including Head Start, child care centers, and home visiting programs, serve many of the same low-income children, yet the two systems rarely collaborate to improve overall population health. Reaching vulnerable children in their early years of physical, social and emotional development is essential to setting them on a path…
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More Rural Hospitals Closing in States Refusing Medicaid Coverage Expansion
The University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Research Program tracks closures of rural hospitals across the country. From 2010 to the present there are six states with five or more rural hospital closures. Texas leads with a stunning 15 rural hospitals closed, followed closely by Tennessee (9 rural hospitals closed) and Georgia (7 rural hospitals…
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States Lean In as the Federal Government Cuts Back: Navigator and Advertising Funding for the ACA’s Sixth Open Enrollment
On November 1, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance marketplaces will launch their sixth enrollment season. This year, the challenges they face may be greater than laster year, with the loss of the individual mandate penalty as an enrollment incentive and the emergence of a parallel, unregulated market that could siphon away healthy enrollees. Yet the Trump administration has…
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Archived Webinar: EPSDT for Providers and Advocates: When to Engage the Legal Community Webinar
In this webinar, presenters discuss medical and legal partnerships and Medicaid EPSDT advocacy, working with legal services lawyers to help children access medical care, and more.
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Medicaid Work Requirement Waivers: Time for CMS to Hit the Pause Button
Yesterday members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC – a Congressional agency) received a briefing from staff on the implementation of the Arkansas work requirement waiver. Staff reviewed the latest data from the state as well as the findings from their own inquiries to various stakeholders. The presentation confirmed my reading…
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Are you Ready for Open Enrollment? Updated Navigator Resource Guide will Help You Understand Policy Changes
On November 1, the sixth open enrollment period begins for marketplace coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We at the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms will soon re-launch our updated Navigator Resource Guide, made possible by the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Guide provides information on recent policy changes, a list of enrollment…
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States discover news ways to finance Medicaid expansion
ABC News By: Shefali Luthra Last year, nearly 60 percent of Maine residents voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program — an option provided by the Affordable Care Act that would extend health insurance to tens of thousands of the state’s low-income people. … Rather than being a cash drain, many health policy researchers and…
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The MOM Model: New CMS Initiative Aims to Improve Systems of Care for Pregnant and Postpartum Women with Opioid Use Disorder
The CMS Innovation Center announced a new tool to help address the devastating impact our nation’s growing opioid crisis is having on pregnant and postpartum women and their infants. The Maternal Opioid Misuse (MOM) model is the latest approach in CMS’s strategy to tackle the opioid crisis in a key population group, expectant and new…
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How Would Medicaid Provisions of New Law to Address Opioid Epidemic Impact Children?
Today President Trump signed the “SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act” into law. SUPPORT is an acronym for “Substance Use—Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment.” The bill, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House (396-14) and the Senate (98-1), is 250 pages long. It affects a broad array of federal…
