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  • State Leaders Advance Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Policy, Part 2

    Cathy Hope

    Four years after launching ZERO TO THREE’s Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Financing Policy Project (IECMH-FPP), we have learned a lot about opportunities to advance infant and early childhood mental health policies, even amidst a tough political climate and funding limitations. In an effort to highlight the remarkable accomplishments of IECMH-FPP states, we recently…

  • CMS Releases New Data on Decline in Pediatric Visits and Vaccination Rates with No Plan to Improve Care for Kids

    Kelly Whitener

    CMS recently released a report on service use among children with Medicaid and CHIP during COVID-19. Perhaps the most newsworthy aspect of the report is that the data therein come from the much beleaguered Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) that my colleague, Tricia Brooks, has been following since CMS announced it in 2013. The…

  • HHS “Good Guidance” Rule:  Not so Good for Medicaid and CHIP

    Andy Schneider

    The Centers for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) recently issued a letter to State Medicaid Directors laying out ways in which state Medicaid agencies can advance value-based care. The 33-page SMD includes numerous references to requirements that states must meet if they want to implement VBP approaches, such as “states must have claims systems that…

  • More Evidence Medicaid Work Requirements Don’t Actually Work

    Allexa Gardner

    A new study from Ben Sommers and other researchers at Harvard University finds that Medicaid work requirements fail to promote employment but do result in more people losing their health coverage and may promote other negative health outcomes. The study, published in Health Affairs, found that negative economic consequences ensued as well – with medical…

  • Census Data Show Largest Annual Increase in Number of Uninsured Children in More Than a Decade

    Joan Alker

    Despite the strength of the pre-pandemic economy in 2019, the number of uninsured children grew at an alarming rate according to newly released data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS data released today documents the largest annual increase in the number of uninsured kids from 2018 to 2019 since the survey…

  • Medicaid Expansion Helped Close Coverage Gaps for Pregnant Women, New Study Finds

    Maggie Clark

    Medicaid expansion helped close coverage gaps for low-income women in the months before, during and after pregnancy, reducing the number of women who were uninsured during this critical time, new research published this month in Health Affairs found. The authors define “low-income” as a woman whose income is below 138% FPL, the eligibility limit for…

  • New 50-State Scorecard Exposes Missed Opportunities to Address Health Equity

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Today The Commonwealth Fund released its annual scorecard on state health system performance. The report pulls together 49 indicators of health coverage, spending, quality and outcomes data to rank state health system performance. The accompanying state profiles provide additional context on the rankings, allowing states to get a comprehensive look at each state’s health care…

  • New Report Underscores Urgent Need for Better Prenatal Health Care in Rural Areas

    CCFadmin

    Earlier this summer, we called attention to the challenges that women in rural communities face during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and new research from Child Trends shows those challenges and health disparities extend to their young children as well. “Health Care Access for Infants and Toddlers in Rural Areas” found that rural infant and…

  • Allowing Pharmacists to Give Childhood Immunizations Undermines the Continuity of Care Provided by Pediatricians

    Tricia Brooks

    This week, HHS announced that it will allow pharmacists to vaccinate children ages 3-18, superseding state laws to the contrary. On the surface, expanding access to childhood vaccinations may seem like a good move but not so fast. While the evidence is clear that childhood immunization rates have declined since the COVID pandemic hit, allowing…

  • New Report Provides State Policy Recommendations on How to Protect Consumers, Reduce Disparities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

    CCFadmin

    The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented threats to health and safety, and exacerbates existing inequities that continue to jeopardize the wellbeing of millions of Americans. As always, state health policy is critical to protecting consumers’ access to health care and addressing health disparities, particularly during the public health and economic crises brought by COVID-19. To help…

  • CCF Welcomes Two New Members to Our Team

    Joan Alker

    As we get ready for what is sure to be a challenging fall and winter, CCF is buoyed by the addition of two terrific women who joined our team on August 10th. CCF’s work continues to grow, both in our core Finish Line state project that has expanded into a network of 22 states, and…

  • KFF Brief Points to Need for Greater Investment in Consumer Assistance to Connect People to Health Coverage

    Aubrianna Osorio

    This week, I’m reading findings from a new Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) brief about who uses consumer assistance programs established under the Affordable Care Act, who does and does not get help, why they seek assistance, and the difference the programs can make in consumers’ ability to obtain health coverage. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Consumer Assistance…

  • District Court Finds Public Charge Rules are Against Public’s Best Interest but Appeals Court Limits Injunction to Three States

    Kelly Whitener

    Editor’s Note: On September 9, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a final rule called Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility that will restore longstanding public charge policy effective December 23, 2022. Learn more in our factsheet. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended every aspect of our lives – health, work, home life, financial stability – and…

  • Families with Young Children Need More Support During COVID-19, Surveys Show

    Maggie Clark

    Since April, the researchers at University of Oregon’s Center for Translational Neuroscience have been conducting a weekly national survey of households with children age 5 and under and the findings are clear: families with young children are stressed, and they’re increasingly facing hunger and unemployment. These challenges, the authors write, are, “negatively affecting caregiver well-being,…

  • Missouri Voters Approve Medicaid Expansion

    Adam Searing

    Missouri voters joined 38 other states (including DC) and adopted Medicaid expansion yesterday by a vote of 53% to 47%. The vote gave Missouri the distinction of being the sixth state to pass Medicaid expansion by a ballot vote, usually over the objections of Republican leadership in each state. The vote followed a familiar rural/urban…

  • Medicaid Managed Care Transparency: Another Leap Forward

    Andy Schneider

    Last October, transparency in Medicaid managed care took a leap forward with the publication of a path-breaking study by Dr. Andrew Bindman and his colleagues at the University of California at San Francisco.  The researchers examined the performance of individual managed care organizations (MCOs) participating in the state’s Medicaid program with respect to quality of…

  • Medicaid Expansion Will Benefit Missouri Kids

    Joan Alker

    Next week, on August 4th, voters in Missouri will have a chance to weigh in on Medicaid expansion — becoming the 6th state to do so. Oklahoma voters just passed a similar expansion measure on June 30 of this year, leaving only 13 states left still refusing federal Medicaid funding to extend affordable health coverage…

  • Medicaid and CHIP Provide Health Coverage to More than Half of Children of Color

    Tricia Brooks

    With the heightened awareness of racial inequality in the news, we wanted to refresh our research showing the importance of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to children of color. More than half of American Indian or Native Alaskan, Black, other or multi-racial, and Hispanic children rely on Medicaid and CHIP as their…

  • Redirecting Medicaid MCO Gains to Offset Network Provider Losses in the Time of COVID-19

    Andy Schneider

    2020 Q2 marked the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, stay-at-home orders, school closures, social distancing, and a recession.  Families put off going to the doctor’s office for routine, non-emergency care.  Primary care physician practices and clinics that bill for each visit saw sharp drops in their revenues as patients stayed at home (pediatricians’ offices were…