Say Ahhh!
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Research Update: U.S. Sees Sharpest Increase in Child Mortality in 50 Years – Guns and Drug Overdoses are Key Drivers
Researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and the University of Washington analyzed new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a recent JAMA article and they paint a bleak picture. Mortality rates for children ages 1 to 19 increased by 11% in 2020, and then by another 8%…
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Here’s a Good Idea – Some States Are Removing Barriers to Coverage by Dropping CHIP Premiums
In January 2020, 30 states charged premiums or enrollment fees to children in Medicaid or CHIP, which were suspended in 19 states during the public health emergency. Since then, six states have eliminated premiums or do not plan to resume them – California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, and North Carolina. New York also eliminated…
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State Medicaid and CHIP Options Can Help Address Maternal Health Crisis and Eliminate Racial Health Inequities
Two Say Ahh! blogs published during Black Maternal Health Week this April–one from Marquita Little Numan reflecting on her personal birth story and another by Tanesha Mondestin on the Black Mamas Matter Alliance policy agenda – underscored the need for significant policy change to address the ongoing maternal health crisis facing our country, where Black…
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House Bill Would Codify Flawed Medicaid Variable Best Price Reporting Rule
On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a legislative hearing discussing numerous health bills including H.R. 2666 — the “Medicaid VBPs for Patients Act.” This bill would codify for five years a technical rule finalized late in the Trump Administration that, among other provisions, allowed…
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Assessing the Damaging Impact of Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements in McCarthy Bill
The Medicaid work reporting requirement provisions contained in Section 321 of House Speaker McCarthy’s draft debt ceiling bill released yesterday are a radical attempt to cut federal funds for Medicaid and will threaten coverage for millions of low-income people — not because people aren’t working but because they fail to jump over a whole new…
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Children’s Marketplace Enrollment Increases Again, but Most Children Will Still be Eligible for Medicaid After Unwinding
When it comes to recent trends in children’s coverage, much attention has rightly focused on the significant child enrollment increases in Medicaid over the past few years due in large part to the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement. Although the Marketplaces cover far fewer children by comparison, child enrollment in Marketplace plans has increased substantially for…
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Data Dashboards Offer Transparency to Medicaid Unwinding Process
As Unwinding Wednesday blog readers know, we are obsessed with data. We’ve highlighted key data to use to monitor the unwinding (performance indicators and supplemental unwinding data), stressed the importance of monitoring call center statistics as they will be the canary in the coalmine, and dug into the nuances of data on procedural disenrollments. And…
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A World Without The ACA’s Preventive Services Protections: The Impact Of The Braidwood Decision
[Editor’s Note: On April 13, the U.S. Department of Justice requested a stay while it pursues an appeal of the Braidwood decision.) By Sabrina Corlette On March 30, 2023, a federal district court judge issued a sweeping ruling, enjoining the government from enforcing Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements that health plans cover and waive cost-sharing for…
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Black Mamas Matter Alliance Highlights Policy Change Needed in Honor of Black Maternal Health Week
Today marks the end of Black Maternal Health Week, which is celebrated every year from April 11-17. This initiative was founded by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), which advocates for Black mothers and has goals of changing policy, cultivating research, advancing care, and shifting culture. The week calls attention to the Black maternal health…
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Speaker McCarthy Blames Medicaid for the Labor Shortage! Huh??
“Right now there are more job openings than people who are looking for jobs. You know why? It’s in part because the Biden Administration weakened work requirements. Incentives matter.” While that quote sounds like a line from a Saturday Night Live skit, it’s actually from Speaker McCarthy’s speech today on Wall Street outlining the House…
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DACA Grantees Move Step Closer to Affordable Health Coverage
The Biden Administration made an important announcement today – the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will soon release a proposed rule that would finally give Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) grantees access to health care coverage. Under current law, DACA grantees are ineligible for Medicaid, CHIP, and Marketplace coverage even though other,…
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Birthing With Dignity and Facing the Disparities: My Black Maternal Health Week Reflections
By Marquita Little Numan As we recognize Black Maternal Health Week this year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my personal birth experience as a Black mother. In 2021, as we all adjusted to a new normal and navigated life during a pandemic, my family was thankful for a reason to celebrate. We learned…
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What Do the Data Tell Us about the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Requirement?
When watching a baseball game, we rely on the scoreboard to keep track of the score, strikes, balls, outs, etc. But unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple when it comes to keeping up with the Medicaid continuous coverage winddown. So far, we have very little data available to monitor the unwinding. CCF is posting state…
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What Happens when the Medicaid “Unwinding” Meets a Natural Disaster?
It turns out that you can’t schedule natural disasters. They happen and they don’t particularly care when. Most recent case in point: Two weeks ago, tornados devastated three counties in Arkansas and six counties in Mississippi, resulting in approval of federal disaster assistance by President Biden and, in the case of Mississippi, a Public Health…
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First Round of Medicaid Disenrollment Data Is In Quickly: What We Know and Don’t Know
Five states (AR, AZ, ID, NH, SD) started disenrolling people from Medicaid last weekend (April 1st) as the unprecedented Medicaid “unwinding” begins. As readers of SayAhh! know, in exchange for extra federal funds, states have been prohibited from disenrolling anyone involuntarily from Medicaid since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Quicker than…
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Unwinding Wednesday #27: States Should Figure Out a Way to Share Renewal Month with Enrollees, Assisters, and Health Care Providers
In mid-2022, only a little more than a third of enrollees had awareness of the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement based on analysis conducted by the Urban Institute. As awareness of the resumption of Medicaid renewals and disenrollments is increasing, some enrollees are getting anxious. And the best way to help quell their…
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New Brief: An Introduction to Managed Care in CHIP
Some three million kids in states with separate CHIP programs are enrolled in Managed Care Organizations (MCOs). Who are those MCOs, and how are they performing for those children? Unlike Medicaid, there’s no publicly available national database that answers those questions. Our new brief attempts to fill that gap. We utilized a variety of methods,…
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We Just Checked and Medicaid Work Requirements are Still a Terrible Idea
Our world is constantly in flux and that can be stressful. But you can rest assured that Medicaid work requirements are a consistently and unalterably terrible idea. The years may pass, but some things never change. Just a few short years ago, numerous experts weighed in on the expected harms associated with Medicaid work requirements.…
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Unwinding Wednesday #26: As the Medicaid Continuous Coverage Protection Ends This Week, It’s Important to Understand Procedural Disenrollments and Why They Occur
Friday, March 31, 2023, will be the last day that Medicaid enrollees are protected from a loss of Medicaid coverage. As of April 1st, people will begin to lose their coverage if they are determined ineligible and many of those will encounter barriers in transitioning to other coverage. These include affordability, limited special enrollment periods…
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Research Update: Are We Underestimating the Number of Children?
Two recent data analyses highlight a question researchers have been asking for years: why is it so hard to get an accurate count of the number of children and is the undercount getting larger? First, a new report from Count All Kids looks at how well—or rather, poorly—children were counted in the 2020 decennial Census,…
