Blog
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Why North Carolina is Finally Getting to ‘Yes’ on Medicaid Expansion
The ancient Roman historian Tacitus wrote that, “It is the singularly unfair peculiarity of war that the credit of success is claimed by all, while a disaster is attributed to one alone.” In the spirit of this observation from 97 AD, I’ll happily admit to trying for at least some historical involvement in North Carolina’s…
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Medicaid and CHIP Provisions in Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget
On March 9, the Biden Administration issued its budget plan for fiscal year 2024. Based on budget documents from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), here’s a brief summary of the provisions related to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), along with the…
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Unwinding Wednesday #23: CMS Releases Anticipated 2023 State Level Timelines
Kudos to CMS for prompt posting of key dates that states are initiating action as we approach the end of Medicaid continuous eligibility on March 31, 2023. Keep in mind that these dates are “anticipated,” and the document bears a specific date; as such, the list will likely be updated if timelines shift. So, what…
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House Bill Prohibiting Use of “QALYs” Is Overbroad, Could Undermine State Negotiation of Medicaid Supplemental Rebates
Editor’s Note: An amended version of the bill (H.R. 485) was reported by the Subcommittee on Health of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 8, 2023. The revised language addresses some of the concerns discussed in this blog post. A House bill (H.R. 485) which was one of the bills discussed at a…
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Medicaid Unwinding Risks Maternal Health Coverage Gains During Pandemic
The pandemic’s continuous coverage protection had a profound effect on health coverage for pregnant women and new mothers, who for the first time experienced pregnancy-related coverage that did not end just 60 days after the end of pregnancy. Before the pandemic, about half of all people covered by Medicaid for pregnancy lost coverage after the…
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Unwinding Wednesday #22: Updates to 50-State Tracker with One Month Until Unwinding Start Date
We are officially in final unwinding countdown with exactly one month until states are allowed to begin Medicaid terminations. In preparation, we have been updating our 50-state tracker with new information including revised state unwinding plans and state renewal reports that were submitted to CMS. Since the 50-state tracker first went live in September 2022,…
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Center for Renewing America Budget Plan Would Cut Federal Medicaid Spending by One-Third, Repeal Affordable Care Act’s Coverage Expansions
According to recent media reports, Russell Vought, the former Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump Administration who is now President of the Center for Renewing America, is a key advisor to House Republican leaders for the severe budget cuts they should seek as the price for agreeing to raise the…
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Federal Medicaid Expansion Incentives Offer Another Tool for States to Continue Coverage as Pandemic-Era Medicaid Rules End
Our new factsheet, “State Fiscal Incentives for Medicaid Expansion Continue after the End of Public Health Emergency” lays out the substantial federal financial incentives for Medicaid expansion remaining available to non-expansion states after April 1, 2023 when states begin the process of ending Medicaid continuous coverage pandemic protections, which allowed beneficiaries to remain enrolled for…
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Unwinding Wednesday #21: FCC Gives Green Light for MCOs and Other State Medicaid Contractors to Use Text Messaging
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has encouraged states to communicate with enrollees through non-mail means, and text messages and automated calls are an efficient and cost-effective way to contact consumers. But there were concerns about compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which was enacted to protect consumers from certain practices that…
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Medicaid Managed Care Financial Results for 2022: Another Big Year for the Big Five
The 2022 earnings reports for the “Big Five”—CVS Health (Aetna), Centene, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), Molina, and United Health Group—are now in. As expected, combined Medicaid enrollment for the “Big Five” increased during 2022 by 3.3 million to 43.2 million, an increase of 8.2 percent (Table 1). (If children are enrolled in “Big Five” MCOs…
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Webinar Series: School Medicaid Matters 2023
Over the next couple of months, CCF will be collaborating with the Healthy Schools Campaign and Community Catalyst to host a series of webinars focused on opportunities to strengthen the role of Medicaid in schools. The series kicked off earlier this month with a webinar featuring former CMS Administrator Vikki Wacchino, who walked through what…
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CCF, Pediatricians Urge State Leaders to Shield Children from Losing Medicaid Coverage
State-by-State Report Shows Medicaid Now Covers More Than Half of U.S. Children This week we teamed up with our colleagues at the American Academy of Pediatrics to release a report and discuss the high stakes for children when the Medicaid continuous coverage protection expires. Medicaid and CHIP now cover 54% of children in the United…
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Unwinding Wednesday #20: All States Must Submit Their Medicaid Continuous Coverage Unwinding Renewal Reports by Today!
Today’s the day! All states are required to submit their state renewal reports to CMS today. States that initiated their first batch of renewals in February were expected to submit their reports on February 1. And all other states are required to submit the reports today. What are the state renewal reports? To better…
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Unwinding Wednesday #19: What Can Application Processing Times Tell Us About State Readiness for the Unwinding?
In the past, I’ve blogged a lot about the Medicaid and CHIP performance indicators that states have been required to report since 2014. Among those indicators, states must report the share of MAGI-based (i.e., non-disabled, non-elderly Medicaid groups) applications completed in five buckets: less than 24 hours (also known as real-time determination),…
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Medicaid Managed Care: A Promising New Point of Accountability
In most states, a central challenge for Medicaid is holding managed care organizations (MCOs) accountable for their performance for enrollees, especially children and families. Medicaid MCOs are collectively responsible for the health of tens of millions (with an “m”) of Medicaid beneficiaries and the proper use of hundreds of billions (with a “b”) of federal…
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CMS Announces Important Consumer Protection for People Losing Medicaid/CHIP
States will begin the process of redetermining Medicaid eligibility for over 80 million people across the country very soon, and some states may be starting the process today. People will not lose Medicaid coverage until April 1 at the earliest, but once disenrollments begin, the number of people losing Medicaid coverage could skyrocket overnight. Some…
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Unwinding Wednesday #18: What Does the End of COVID Emergency Declarations Mean for Medicaid/CHIP?
On Monday, the Biden Administration announced that it would end the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency declarations effective May 11th. Some folks may have stopped paying attention or holding their breath in anticipation of the announcement of the end of the PHE once the Medicaid continuous enrollment protection was…
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House Republican Study Committee Budget Plan Includes Draconian Medicaid Cuts
House Republican leaders continue to threaten debt default unless the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats accede to their demands for severe budget cuts. So far, House Republicans have not spelled out the specific budget cuts they are seeking as the price for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling, including to Medicaid. But last year’s Republican…
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The ACA’s Preventive Services Benefit Is in Jeopardy: What Can States Do to Preserve Access?
By Justin Giovannelli, Sabrina Corlette, and Madeline O’Brien, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms A federal judge is poised to gut one of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA requires that most private health plans cover preventive services, such as certain cancer screenings and immunizations, without imposing cost sharing on…
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Hundreds of Thousands of Children Could Lose Coverage in Florida Alone as U.S. Approaches High Stakes Medicaid Unwinding
As readers of SayAhhh! know, Congress has given the green light to states to begin checking eligibility for all Medicaid beneficiaries who have been protected from disenrollment by federal law since the Families First Covid Relief Act passed in March 2020. Terminations can begin on April 1, 2023; states have a year to complete the…
