Resources
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Moms Rising and CCF Host Blog Carnival to Connect Kids to Coverage
and Anita Jackson, Mom’s Rising Despite the increase in childhood poverty, our nation has managed to reduce the number of children going without health insurance during these tough economic times thanks to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. This is great news but there is more work to be done as too many of…
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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Affordable Care Act Challenge
By Eva Marie Stahl, Community Catalyst The awaited day is here. The Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case against the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual responsibility requirement (and other related requests). For those immersed in football season, this is the Super Bowl of legal challenges. Game time. Be prepared, the oral arguments will…
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Implementing the Affordable Care Act for Millennials: What Can States Do?
By Maya Brod, Young Invincibles The Young Invincibles recently released a state guide with recommendations on how to best implement provisions of health care reform for young adults. The report, titled, “Implementing the Affordable Care Act for Young Invincibles: A State Guide for Health Care Reform for Millennials” identifies five major pieces of the ACA that disproportionately…
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Updated Research Gives Fresh Clues to Reaching Uninsured Children
A recent survey by Lake Research Partners refreshes our knowledge of barriers to enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP. Commissioned by CMS for its Connecting Kids to Coverage initiative, the survey interviewed nearly 2,000 parents with income at or below 250% of the poverty level; about one-third each with uninsured children, children enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP, or…
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Medicaid & CHIP Approval Rating Higher than Employer Coverage Among Parents
Consistently over the years, studies have shown a high level of satisfaction by parents whose children are covered by Medicaid or CHIP. So it’s no surprise that a recent survey conducted by Lake Research Partners for CMS confirms this finding once again. What is somewhat surprising is that parents with kids enrolled in Medicaid and…
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NAIC Brings up Medical Loss Ratio Again
You know that expression, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”? Well, it came to mind this past week at the National Association of Insurance Commissioner’s (NAIC) fall meeting in Washington, DC. Just as in March, during the NAIC’s spring meeting in Austin, the NAIC consumer representatives were lulled into…
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The State of Young America: Health Care and Coverage
By Maya Brod, Young Invincibles Long-term economic trends, such as diminished wages and disappearing jobs, combined with rising health care costs, make our generation of young adults the most uninsured age group in the country. But in spite of these bleak trends, changes to the insurance system brought by health care reform have begun to…
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Foster Kids Rely on Medicaid
By Laura Boyd, Foster Family-based Treatment Association What is treatment or therapeutic foster care? Many in the child welfare ranks do not know; many are confused and unsure about TFC. Treatment or Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC) is specialized foster care consisting of intensive behavioral health services delivered usually in foster homes by licensed mental health…
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Childhood is an Extreme Sport – Get Kids Covered
I just returned from the Children’s Health Insurance Summit in Chicago where organizations that successfully applied for CHIPRA outreach and enrollment grants gathered to share ideas on how to better Connect Kids to Coverage. I’ll have more to say about the summit in a future blog but I first have to fulfill my promise to…
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A Chance to Raise Your Voice for Kids
By Joe Touschner We’ve posted in the past about the essential health benefits–the package of benefits that will be the basis for all health plans in the individual and small group markets and for some in Medicaid starting in 2014. Last month, the Institute of Medicine made recommendations to the Department of Health and Human…
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Can We Know the Unknown? How Medicaid Enrollment Could Vary Under Health Reform
By Martha Heberlein Back when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first being debated, there were two government estimates that predicted different numbers of new enrollees in Medicaid – one by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the other by the actuaries at CMS. Since then, a number of other studies have examined the impact…
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SC Medicaid Director Seeks to Remove Roadblocks to Medicaid Enrollment
Sue Berkowitz, South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center While South Carolina is often a state cited for being first on list for outcomes that are bad and last in those that are good, we have some surprisingly positive news. The South Carolina Medicaid director Tony Keck, in his 2012-13 budget request to Gov. Haley, asked…
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Comments on Proposed Medicaid, CHIP, and Exchange Eligibility Rules
CCF comments on the proposed rule that implements sections of the ACA related to Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment simplification, and coordination.(Federal Register, 76: 51148-5199). CCF comments on the proposed rule on eligibility determinations for Exchange participation and insurance affordability programs and standards for employer participation in SHOP. (Federal Register 76: 51202- 51237). CCF addendum…
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An Honest Look at State Budgets After ARRA Expires
By Tara Mancini Yesterday, three timely releases from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured show that state budgets are beginning to turn around. The 11th annual 50-state survey of Medicaid budgets, coupled with an updated brief on state budgets in recession and recovery, and another on Medicaid provisions in ARRA (the stimulus bill)…
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How Would Michele Bachmann Replace Obamacare?
An uninsured mother with a son who relies on Medicaid for health care coverage asked Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann the following question at a town hall meeting in Winterset, Iowa: “I want to hear more from you than your statement that on the day that you are elected you are going to end Obamacare, I…
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If Only There Were Cliff Notes on Proposed ACA Regs
As the October 31st deadline looms for groups that want to comment on the three proposed rules relating to the eligibility and enrollment of individuals into health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, many groups may wish “Cliff Notes” were available to help them sort through all the issues and the potential impact on children…
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National Groups Oppose CA Request to Circumvent Cost-Sharing Protections
Cost-sharing in the private insurance model was intended to encourage consumers to use services prudently, however, the application of increased cost-sharing for those enrolled in Medicaid often simply forces low-income individuals to go without medically necessary care. For that reason, federal legal protections were put in place to protect low-income people from being overburdened with…
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Major Implications for Children and Families of the Proposed Affordable Care Act Rules on Eligibility and Enrollment Systems
On August 17, 2011, the Obama Administration published three proposed rules in the Federal Register relating to the eligibility and enrollment of individuals into health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Taken together, they offer a comprehensive blueprint of how the Administration is proposing to implement the provisions of the ACA aimed at ensuring…
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Waiver Watchers Alert: CMS decision protects AZ parents’ coverage; Budget cuts do not a waiver make
Another installment in the ongoing saga regarding Arizona’s efforts to rollback coverage for parents and childless adults occurred on October 7th when CMS sent the state a letter reviewing where things stand with the state’s Section 1115 waiver request. In January, Arizona became the first state in the nation to request a waiver of the…
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Clock is Ticking for Super Committee
Today marks the deadline for Congressional standing committees to submit recommendations for spending cuts or revenue increases to the Super Committee (officially known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction). The clock is ticking as the Super Committee races (often behind closed doors) to meet its November 23rd deadline to report out a bill…