Blog
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Missouri Voters Reject Attempts to Limit Ballot Measures Affecting Issues Like Medicaid Expansion
This week, voters in Missouri soundly rejected two state constitutional amendment ballot measures proposed by the Legislature that had implications for issues such as Medicaid expansion and other health policy issues. Proposed Amendment 4 (defeated 80% to 20%) would have required future proposed constitutional amendments in Missouri to achieve an individual majority in every congressional district…
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Early Childhood Educators Still Need Medicaid – Now More than Ever
Our brief on the critical role Medicaid plays for the early childhood education workforce has been re-published with new 2024 data, resources, and implications from the past year of federal actions, with the help of our partners, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC),…
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CCF Submits Comments on Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements Interim Final Rule
Today, CCF submitted public comments on CMS’s Interim Final Rule (IFR) implementing H.R. 1-mandated Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements (WRRs). As we’ve written about time and time again, WRR policies are harmful, create unnecessary barriers to coverage, and will result in coverage losses without actually supporting work. Nonetheless, H.R. 1 has required most states to impose…
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Change to Census Data Processing Methods Threatens Health Policy Research and Federal Data Systems
On June 4, 2026, the Commerce Department issued Department Administrative Order (DAO) 216-26, Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products, which bans a class of privacy techniques called “noise infusion” in all data products coming out of the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). This order, which was made effective immediately without opportunity for…
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Weaponizing Fraud Against Medicaid in California and Minnesota: Another Quarter, Another Round of Deferrals
At a July 21 press conference, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz announced that his agency was deferring payment of $1.1 billion in federal Medicaid matching funds to California and Minnesota “pending review of high-risk claims in crackdown on fraud.” The amount of the California deferral was $867.5 million; the Minnesota deferral, $199.0 million. CMS has previously taken…
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Senator Kim Introduces Bill to Cover All Children and Young Adults
Last week, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) introduced a bill called the “MediKids Act” (S. 5037), described as “guaranteed healthcare for every child in America.” Original cosponsors were Sens. Booker (NJ), Duckworth (IL), Lujan (NM) and Padilla (CA) – all Democrats and the bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. As regular readers of the…
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CMS Issues New Rule Again Going Beyond H.R. 1 Requirements to Further Restrict State Use of Medicaid Provider Taxes
On July 21, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new proposed rule that would implement two of H.R. 1’s restrictions on states’ use of provider taxes to finance their share of Medicaid costs. H.R. 1 included three provider tax restrictions: (1) a prohibition on new provider taxes and increases in…
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Trump Administration Issues Final Public Charge Rule, Ignores Public Comments on Harm to Children
On July 20, 2026, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued final regulations lifting current rules used to determine whether an immigrant is likely to become a “public charge”. The final rule, which takes effect on September 18, eliminates a century of established policy, carefully calibrated to address policy issues and undefined terms in…
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New Report Shows Coverage Gains for New Mothers—But Progress has Stalled with New Threats on the Horizon
A new report from the Urban Institute indicates that health insurance coverage among new mothers in the first year postpartum has improved significantly over recent years, but that progress has begun to stall. Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), the researchers find that the uninsured rate among women ages 19 to…
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New Report Examines How States Can Protect Pregnant/Postpartum Enrollees from Losing Health Coverage Due to Work Reporting Requirements (And Why We Should Still Be Worried)
As awareness has grown about the new Medicaid work reporting requirements (WRRs) that have already been put in place in some states but are mandated to begin January 1 of next year, it has created layers of confusion about who will be required to report work hours. Our new report on pregnant women and WRRs…
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CMS Approach to Work Reporting Requirement Won’t Work for People with Substance Use Disorders or Mental Health Conditions
By Deborah Steinberg, Senior Health Policy Attorney, Legal Action Center A few weeks ago, CCF explained how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new interim final rule with comment period (IFR) that went far beyond its authority to implement the new work reporting requirements. H.R. 1 – the budget reconciliation law…
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Revalidation of ‘High-Risk’ Medicaid Providers: Early Lessons from Minnesota
On April 23, the CMS Administrator, Dr. Mehmet Oz, issued a letter to State Medicaid Directors “formally asking that your state develop and submit a comprehensive two-year provider revalidation (PR) strategy….” This SMD is not posted on Medicaid.gov with all the other SMDs, but you can view it on the Fox News website. The state…
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Transforming Perinatal Care in Colorado: Q&A with Elephant Circle Founder Indra Lusero
We have been watching and tracking all of the progress in states to improve Medicaid for pregnant and postpartum people during a period of rapid, positive change, even during the most recent legislative sessions under a backdrop of federal cuts. Colorado was one of the early states to pursue comprehensive maternal health initiatives, so we…
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Post Office Rural Service and Proposed Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements on Collision Course
I recently wrote about problems with the federal government’s suggested definition of “volunteer” in the proposed rule implementing the new law (H.R. 1) passed by Congress that requires patients to meet work/volunteer reporting requirements to maintain Medicaid coverage. The changes in this law are estimated to increase the number of uninsured Americans by 10 million people…
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Georgetown CCF Medicaid/CHIP Expert Tricia Brooks Retires (sort of) and Will Return as Professor Emeritus
For anyone who has worked with Tricia Brooks over the last twenty years, it is impossible to imagine her retiring. Tricia has been the heart and soul of much of the Center for Children and Families’ work with state and national partners and a leading national expert on Medicaid eligibility and enrollment, health care quality,…
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How H.R. 1 Cuts and Changes to Medicaid Played out in 2026 State Legislative Sessions (Part 2)
It’s been nearly a year since H.R.1 was signed into law, enacting the largest Medicaid cuts in history and setting off a scramble in state capitals to respond. Back in March, we took a look at how ten state legislatures were grappling with the impending budget holes and policies created by H.R.1. Now that most…
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Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements: States Ask a Federal Court to Protect Medically Frail Individuals from CMS Overreach
On June 3, CMS issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) misinterpreting the work reporting requirements enacted last July in H.R. 1. The H.R. 1 provisions were bad enough, but as my colleague Leo Cuello has explained, the IFR imposes policies on states and individuals that the Congress did not enact. Most notably, the IFR makes…
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Professor, Mentor, Researcher, and Data Pioneer: Celebrating Lynn Blewett’s Retirement
I first met Lynn Blewett as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where her courses on the U.S. health care system fundamentally shaped how I understand policy and evidence. What struck me most was her ability to translate complex health systems into their human dimensions and to remind us…
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Early Signals Suggest a Second Year of Double-Digit Marketplace Premium Increases
It’s the start of rate review season for state insurance departments. Although most proposed premium rates for 2027 Marketplace coverage are not due to federal regulators until mid-July and will not be public until the end of July, some state regulators require insurers to submit proposed rate filings in May or June and release varying levels of…
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Emerging State Data Paint a Bleak Picture of 2026 Marketplace Enrollment
Congress’s failure to extend premium tax credit enhancements led to unprecedented net premium increases in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces in 2026. As a result, fewer people signed up for coverage during the 2026 open enrollment period, and many others “bought down” to less expensive plans that carry higher out-of-pocket costs. However, to more fully…
