Blog
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Affordable Care Act Back in the Spotlight: Build on its Progress or Scrap it Entirely
It is hard to find a starker example of the different approaches our two political parties take to health care than the events of March 26, 2019. The day started with headlines about the Trump administration’s push to have the Affordable Care Act (ACA) declared unconstitutional, and ended with Democratic legislators in the U.S. House introducing a bill that…
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When Early Childhood Educators are Covered, Kids Win: Stories from North Carolina
If you, like me, have the peace of mind of knowing that your toddler or preschooler is well cared for and supported while you’re at work, you probably know already that you’re incredibly fortunate. I am grateful every day for the many early childhood teachers who make the safety, educational success, and wellbeing of a…
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Judge Blocks Arkansas and Kentucky Medicaid Work Requirement Waivers: What Does This Decision Mean for Other States?
Under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), federal agencies may not take actions that are “arbitrary or capricious.” If they do, federal courts are instructed to hold the action unlawful and set it aside. Late yesterday afternoon, that’s exactly what Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia did with…
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Hot Off the Press: Annual KFF 50-State Survey on Medicaid
This 17th annual KFF survey and key resource for Medicaid stakeholders reports eligibility, enrollment, renewal and cost-sharing policies in place as of January 2019 for children, pregnant women, parent/caretakers, and low-income adults in Medicaid and CHIP. Like the previous year, for the most part states continued to refine their efforts in delivering a streamlined, data-driven…
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Harnessing Medicaid Payment Reform to Improve Child Health
Child health stakeholders have eagerly followed the progress in New York State’s First 1,000 Days Initiative aimed at using value-based purchasing (VBP) in Medicaid to assure a healthy start and school readiness. Now, the United Hospital Fund (UHF) – the backbone of New York’s effort – has published a brief that explores the context and…
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How Would Utah’s Medicaid Partial Expansion Waiver Break New Ground if Approved
Utah’s legislature recently passed a bill which rolled back the Medicaid expansion passed by the voters in November and substituted a much weaker replacement. With the Governor planning to start enrollment on April 1st into the more limited version, we expect some action by CMS on Utah’s pending Medicaid Section 1115 proposal in the next…
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CCF Comments to Administration’s Harmful Rebate Safe Harbor Rule
We submitted comments to the Trump Administration’s proposed regulation to eliminate the safe harbor in the federal anti-kickback law for rebates negotiated by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) on behalf of Medicaid managed care plans (and Medicare Part D plans). As we have previously written, the proposed regulation raises serious concerns because it would likely…
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More News on T-MSIS – Medicaid’s Transformed Statistical Information System
Say Ahhh! readers know I’ve been following the development of CMS’ new Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) for…well…years. The last news we got on T-MSIS was last August when CMS released a State Health Officer Letter detailing its top 12 priorities for states, which I summarized in this blog. Recently, CMS issued a new…
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Evaluating the Administration’s Narrative on Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements
It turns out that last week was Never Mind Week. Who would have guessed? On Monday the Administration released its “Budget for a Better America,” proposing to cut federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1.5 trillion (with a “t”) over the next ten years. These cuts included a mandate that state Medicaid programs require that “able-bodied,…
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Four Steps to Improve Children’s Oral Health Care in Medicaid and CHIP
Our partners at the Children’s Dental Health Project (CDHP) released a great report recently called, “Medicaid Dental Guidance to States: An Opportunity to Aim for Equity,” highlighting how states, managed care organizations (MCOs), providers, and advocates can work to improve dental care for children covered by Medicaid and CHIP. The report draws from CMS guidance…
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Many Unanswered Questions about Trump Budget’s CHIP Financing Proposal
The Trump Administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget, released on March 11, includes a single legislative proposal (described here) related to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Entitled “Strengthen the CHIP Safety Net for States,” the proposal would eliminate the CHIP’s Child Enrollment Contingency Fund in fiscal year 2021 and replace it with a new Shortfall…
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Trump Budget Includes Harmful Medicaid Drug Rebate Proposal, Several Sound Improvements
On March 11, the Trump Administration released its fiscal year 2020 budget. As my colleague Andy Schneider has written, the Administration budget plan would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, impose a per capita cap or block grant on the rest of the Medicaid program, require all states to adopt onerous work reporting requirements…
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CMS Announces Reorganization of Offices Overseeing Medicaid and CHIP
CMS recently announced a reorganization of the regional and central offices that oversee Medicaid and CHIP. It’s too soon to tell how the re-org will impact the day-to-day operations of Medicaid and CHIP, but the federal register notice says that the new structure will support consistent policy implementation and accountability. You may not have even…
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Administration’s Budget Proposal Includes $1.5 Trillion in Medicaid Cuts
[Editor’s Note: Read about the Trump Administration’s budget proposal for FY2021.] Here they go again. Last year, the Administration proposed a budget that would have cut federal Medicaid spending by $1.4 trillion over ten years. In the budget released this morning, the Administration proposes to cut federal Medicaid spending by $1.5 trillion over the next…
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What States Can Do to Help Babies and Their Families Thrive
Each baby is born with limitless potential, and anyone who has ever held a baby has felt the enormity of opportunity ahead. But as ZERO TO THREE and Child Trends’ 50-state assessment of the state of babies in the United States finds, some babies come into the world facing more obstacles than opportunities. One in…
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Child Health Providers and Advocates Ask HHS Secretary to Reject Work Requirements for Low-Income Parents
Today Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families joined over 50 other national health care provider, research and consumer groups focused on children and families to send a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar raising concerns about the harm of work requirements for children and families, particularly in states that have not expanded Medicaid. The…
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A Tribute to Rob Restuccia, a True Health Care Hero
Over the weekend our longtime friend and colleague Rob Restuccia succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Whether his years at the helm of the national consumer advocacy organization Community Catalyst or his work on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, or many other policy debates, Rob was at the center of the effort to extend the benefits of…
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Child Enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP Down 600k Children in 2018
After CMS released October 2018 Medicaid and CHIP data, we reported that child enrollment was down by more than half a million children in the first 10 months of 2018. So needless to say, we were anxious to see the final November 2018 numbers, which were just released. In November 2018, child enrollment in Medicaid…
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How to Assess the Impact of Health Coverage Expansion Proposals on Children
With the outcome of the Congressional midterm elections, the risk of federal legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and impose a cap on federal Medicaid funding has receded. Some federal policymakers are instead renewing focus on how to again make substantial progress towards the goal of universal coverage. This need has become…
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Medicaid and State Budgets: Checking the Facts (Yet Again)
It’s that time of year again. Estimators publish their projections of Medicaid spending, journalists report on the projections, and policymakers decide whether and how they want to act. Medicaid covers up to 35 million low-income children, so getting these projections right, and explaining them correctly, is hugely important for public understanding of the program. Unfortunately,…
