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  • Oregon Effort Incentivizes Health Metrics for Kindergarten Readiness

    Cathy Hope

    Preparing a child for school success and the start of kindergarten is one of the most important goals of early childhood care and education. While educators and child development experts would agree that physical, oral, and behavioral health play a major role in a child’s readiness for kindergarten, Oregon and other states have struggled to…

  • Pediatricians are an Important Ally in Efforts to Reduce Chronic Absenteeism

    Phyllis Jordan

    The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released guidance for its 67,000 doctors on how to help children and families improve school attendance. The policy statement, authored by pediatricians Mandy A. Allison and Elliot Attisha of the organization’s Council on School Health, urges doctors to speak with children and families during office visits about the importance of…

  • Risks to Medicaid Surface in Drug Pricing Debate

    Edwin Park

    As the debate over prescription drug pricing heats up, I have been worried for a while that some of the federal policy solutions being considered in Congress and in the Administration could adversely affect Medicaid and its highly effective rebate program, whether inadvertently or intentionally.  This could result in higher Medicaid drug costs, reduced beneficiary…

  • Research Update: Evidence Suggests Medicaid Expansion Increases Access to Treatments for Opioid Use Disorder

    CCFadmin

    In the past year, my colleagues at Georgetown University CCF have blogged about increases in funding to fight the opioid epidemic, Medicaid’s critical role in caring for infants exposed to opioids in utero, as well as Medicaid doubling the likelihood that Americans with opioid addiction will get the treatment they need. A new research report…

  • CMS Weighing Decision that Would Lead to Loss of Health Coverage for Thousands of Tennessee Families Living in Poverty

    Joan Alker

    Tennessee, a state that has not accepted the option to expand Medicaid to more low-income adults, has become the fifth state to ask CMS to impose a work or community service reporting requirement on parents with incomes at or below 98% of the federal poverty level. South Carolina is next in the queue. If the…

  • Lack of ACA Navigator Funding Leads to Consumer Confusion, Decreased Enrollment

    CCFadmin

    Open Enrollment is over in most states, and enrollment numbers are down slightlyfrom 8.8 million plan selections on healthcare.gov for plan year 2018 to 8.4 million plan selections for plan year 2019. Navigators thought the 2018 Open Enrollment was challenging, after a slew of policy changes including massive Navigator grant funding cuts, shortened enrollment period, 90 percent cuts to federal…

  • The Proposed 2020 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters: Summary and Implications for States

    Sabrina Corlette

    On January 17, 2019 the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released its annual draft rule governing core provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the operation of the marketplaces, benefit standards for health plans, and premium stabilization programs. Referred to as the “Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters” or NBPP, the…

  • How Are States Using Medicaid to Pay for Home Visiting? New Paper Offers More Clarity

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    As we’ve sought to identify concrete ways Medicaid can better support young children’s development, one of the clearest opportunities of high interest to policymakers is expanding home visiting programs for pregnant women and young children. Using Medicaid for home visiting is not a new concept, but a number of factors have raised the profile of…

  • Arkansas’ Medicaid Work Reporting Rules Lead to Staggering Health Coverage Losses

    Joan Alker

    Earlier this week, the state of Arkansas released its final round of data for 2018 for its controversial work reporting requirement policy. The data shows that an additional 1,232 adults lost their Medicaid coverage at the end of December, bringing the total Medicaid coverage loss since August to 18,164. The news motivated me to take…

  • Georgetown University’s CCF Weighs in on Proposed Changes to Managed Care Rule

    Andy Schneider

    Last November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed changes to its Medicaid Managed Care Rule.  As I explained at the time, these proposals can be seen as part of a broader effort by the agency to weaken access protections for children, parents, and other Medicaid beneficiaries, not just in managed care, but…

  • Help Shape Child and Adolescent Health Priorities by Submitting Comments on Healthy People 2030

    Candace Webb

    Planning is now underway for Healthy People 2030 and advocates have an opportunity to help shape child and adolescent health priorities for the next decade. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is soliciting written comments on the proposed objectives for Healthy People 2030 until 5:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, January 17, 2019.…

  • What does the Partial Government Shutdown Mean for the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces?

    Sabrina Corlette

    As the clock ticks, the likelihood increases that we are in the midst of the longest-ever shutdown of U.S. government agencies. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are either furloughed or working without pay and critical government services are going unperformed. For the millions of Americans who rely on the federal government for their health care, many likely have…

  • Oklahoma’s Medicaid Waiver Proposal Will Harm Its Most Vulnerable Families

    Joan Alker

    Unfortunately, our series of reports looking at harmful state Medicaid work requirement rules targeting very poor parents is getting longer. Today we are releasing an updated look at Oklahoma’s proposal, which is currently up for public comment at the federal level.  Six states now have active proposals – Mississippi, Alabama, and South Dakota have proposals…

  • New CCF Issue Brief on Strengthening Effective Medicaid Drug Rebate Program

    Edwin Park

    Today, we issued our fifth issue brief in our Future of Children’s Health Coverage series. It focuses on how to build upon and improve the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program at both the federal and state levels in order to help state Medicaid programs better address their rising prescription drug costs.  This, in turn, would ensure continued…

  • First Steps: A Spotlight on Check-ups and Developmental Screenings for Young Texans

    CCFadmin

    A baby’s brain forms more than 1 million new neural connections every second. This incredible rate of early brain development, supported by nurturing and engaged caregivers, provides a foundation for children to master new skills like crawling, walking, language, and social interactions. Experiences during this period of rapid growth and early brain development pave the…

  • There’s Always Opportunity to Make Medicaid and CHIP Work Better: A Look at Connecticut

    Tricia Brooks

    Recently, I had the opportunity to take a close look at how well Connecticut’s Medicaid and CHIP programs – known as Husky Health – are serving children. My assessment and recommendations were published in a new brief released recently by the Connecticut Health Foundation. In many ways, Husky Health is a high performing Medicaid and…

  • MACPAC Releases Medicaid Eligibility, Enrollment and Renewal Case Studies Examining New Data-Driven Processes

    Tricia Brooks

    Before the holidays, MACPAC and its contractor, SHADAC, (the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota) released findings of a study that examined the status of the new data-driven enrollment and renewal processes enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act. The case studies report on how six states – Arizona,…

  • What Does the Partial Government Shutdown Mean for Medicaid and CHIP?

    Andy Schneider

    A year ago, the entire federal government was shut down for three days over a dispute about DACA.  My colleague Kelly Whitener explained the implications of that full shutdown for Medicaid and CHIP.  We are now in the 14th day of a partial government shutdown over a dispute about funding for a border wall.  Unlike the full…

  • New Report Finds South Carolina’s Medicaid Waiver Would Leave Thousands of Poor Parents Uninsured

    Joan Alker

    [Editor’s Note: On March 4, 2019 South Carolina posted a revised application for state public comment.] Just before the holidays, South Carolina posted its application for new work-related reporting rules for very low-income parents and caretaker relatives with incomes below 67 percent of the poverty line who are insured through Medicaid. Today we partnered with South Carolina…