Resources
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Pediatric Dental Benefits Under the ACA: Issues for State Advocates to Consider
By Joe Touschner The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the Children’s Dental Health Project collaborated to produce this issue brief. It presents an overview of some of the key changes the Affordable Care Act makes to children’s dental benefits and the choices states face in defining pediatric dental benefits. It concludes with recommendations for those who wish to support…
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Study Finds Medicaid Beneficiaries’ Use of Hospital Emergency Departments Comparable to Privately Insured Patients
By Tara Mancini Medicaid seems to be a lightening rod for inaccurate assumptions such as it’s too expensive for states (it’s a good deal for states), overall cost (more cost-effective than private insurance) and beneficiaries using hospital Emergency Departments for routine care. Until recently, there had not been much research to refute the perception of…
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Child Health Advocates’ Guide to Essential Health Benefits
By Joe Touschner This guide highlights considerations for the selection of the essential health benefits with a focus on services for children. The Department of Health and Human Services has determined that each state will select an essential health benefits package based on an existing employer-based health plan. The guide outlines the process for choosing and supplementing…
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Consumer Assistance in the Digital Age
This brief provides recommendations on how states can connect consumers with health coverage programs like Medicaid and health insurance exchanges. It also explores how ways to connect consumers with health coverage options will evolve as new technological tools are deployed to facilitate the enrollment process. Where states’ use of new technology tools is limited, the authors…
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Countdown to 2014: Designing Navigator Programs to Meet the Needs of Consumers
Exchanges are required to establish a navigator program that provides grants to community or consumer-focused nonprofits and other organizations to conduct outreach and help consumers and small employers connect to health coverage. States have broad flexibility in designing their programs as long as minimum federal guidelines are met. While similar to existing models of consumer assistance in Medicaid and Medicare, navigator…
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Fresh Insights into Strategies and Messages for Enrollment in Medicaid and the Exchange
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently released new research to help states identify messages that will encourage enrollment in Medicaid in 2014 when minimum eligibility levels are expanded to 133% FPL. The research also explores issues relating to state Exchanges, including attitudes about enrolling and choosing health insurance online. It was conducted in three states:…
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Expanding Coverage for Parents Helps Children: Children’s Groups Have a Key Role in Urging States to Move Forward and Expand Medicaid
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid coverage to include parents and low-income adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line. The Supreme Court’s decision means states can now decide whether or not to implement this expansion. Covering low-income parents is important for children: covering parents means that more eligible children will…
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Comments on CCIIO’s Verification of Access to Employer-‐Sponsored Coverage Bulletin
CCF Comments on CCIIO’s Verification of Access to Employer-‐Sponsored Coverage Bulletin
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Child Welfare and the Affordable Care Act: Key Provisions for Children and Youth in the Foster Care System
The Affordable Care Act will have important implications for many of the nation’s children, but, it may prove particularly significant for the over 400,000 children and youth who are part of the foster care system. This issue brief reviews ACA provisions that hold promise of improving the health and well-being of these children, who often…
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New York Times Offers a Preview of Who Might Benefit Under the ACA
By Martha Heberlein As we await the ruling from the Supreme Court, a recent article in the New York Times reminds us of just how important the Medicaid expansion will be. The article tells the stories of a number of adults who have benefited (or didn’t) from a lottery in Oregon in 2008 that randomly selected…
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Utah’s Exchange Shifts Cost to Families
Editor’s Note: Just over a year ago, CCF and our colleagues at Georgetown’s Center for Health Insurance Reforms released a paper examining the health insurance exchanges operating in Utah and Massachusetts. We concluded that they should not be viewed as ideological “bookends” but rather as entities with different goals that had taken different steps to attract…
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Will Funding for the ACS Continue? (I hope so!)
By Martha Heberlein As I’m sure you can tell from our multitude of blogs – we at CCF love the ACS! With its large sample size, it’s allowed us (and all our friends out in the states) to dig into data in smaller slices of the country. With the recognition that once-a-decade data collection is not…
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Covering Parents is Good For Kids: 4.9 Million Uninsured Stand to Gain Coverage
As any parent who has faced the challenge of being sick and trying to fulfill his or her parenting duties will tell you – the well-being of children is highly dependent on the well-being of their parents. My bottomline is covering parents is good for kids. While we’ve made great strides in bringing down the…
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Medicaid Coverage for Parents under the Affordable Care Act – State Fact Sheets
This issue brief presents national estimates of the number and characteristics of uninsured parents who would be eligible for Medicaid in 2014 according to whether they have child who is currently enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP coverage or an uninsured child who is eligible for Medicaid/CHIP but not enrolled. State-specific data are also provided on the ten…
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Medicaid Coverage for Parents under the Affordable Care Act
This issue brief presents national estimates of the number and characteristics of uninsured parents who would be eligible for Medicaid in 2014 according to whether they have child who is currently enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP coverage or an uninsured child who is eligible for Medicaid/CHIP but not enrolled. State-specific data are also provided on the ten…
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A Focus on Children and Youth in the Nuts and Bolts of an Exchange
By Mike Odeh, Children Now School might be out for summer – but not for California’s Health Benefit Exchange board! The board has scheduled at least two full meetings in June, and is absorbing a small encyclopedia’s worth of reports. These extensive analyses touch on some of the many important “nuts and bolts” decisions that…
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New Study Finds Massachusetts Health Reform is Good for Kids
By Tara Mancini Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform law is frequently a topic of research and debate. However, few studies have specifically focused on how children have fared as a result of the reform. That is until this recent study published in the American Economic Review that focuses solely on children under 18 and the impact that…
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IRS Releases Final Premium Tax Credit Rule
By Martha Heberlein The final premium tax credit rule was published in the Federal Register on May 23rd. The rule, which describes eligibility for the health insurance premium tax credits, pretty much finalized what was proposed back in August. (For a summary on the math behind the calculations, check out HealthReformGPS.) However, there are a few interesting things…
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Children’s Socioeconomic Status and Health: Progress Made and Opportunities to Seize
By Tara Mancini The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently released the 2011 edition of their annual report on the health status of the nation. The 35th edition, “Health, United States, 2011,” provides single year data, as well as trend data where it is available. The report…
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Six States Explore More Efficient Ways to Provide Family Benefits
For those of us who appreciate the opportunities and challenges states face in implementing the Affordable Care Act, it is easy to get wrapped up in making sure the expanded health coverage programs are streamlined and well coordinated. Much of the work ahead relies on having sophisticated IT systems that will revolutionize the eligibility and…