Blog
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Teens Discover Peer-to-Peer Outreach Works to Connect More Students with Health Coverage
This year the Tennessee Justice Center launched a Student Ambassador Program to engage young people in our Insure Our Kids Campaign. This campaign seeks to get every eligible child in Tennessee enrolled in health insurance coverage by educating the community and providing enrollment assistance. To find and enroll those uninsured students, we turned to their…
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Lawsuit Challenges Arkansas’s Medicaid Work Requirement
Back in 2014, Arkansas expanded Medicaid through a section 1115 demonstration waiver referred to as the ‘private option.’ Newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in private market plans on the ACA’s Marketplace and the state defrayed the costs and offered wrap-around benefits. A preliminary evaluation of the private option showed that Arkansas cut its uninsured rate…
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At Last, Some News on T-MSIS – the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System
Say Ahhh! readers know that I am a fan of how technology can transform eligibility and significantly improve data collection and reporting. And I’ve been anxiously awaiting signs of progress on the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) since CMS released an August 2013 letter to State Medicaid Directors indicating that the system was being piloted…
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Early Childhood Educators Support Children’s Healthy Development: Who is Meeting their Health Care Needs?
Early childhood educators care for our youngest children during the time of their most rapid brain growth. They help foster essential brain development that builds a foundation for children to learn and grow for the rest of their lives. But the teachers themselves often go without. Faced with low wages and limited workplace supports, many…
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Oklahoma’s Proposed Work Rule Would Harm Mothers and Children
Oklahoma has one of the highest uninsured rates for children in the nation, and the state will likely make matters worse if it gets a green light from CMS to go through with a plan to impose more red tape requirements on poor parents. Oklahoma is seeking approval to amend its Section 1115 demonstration waiver…
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New resources help states improve children’s oral health care following CMS bulletin
In May, CDHP expressed our excitement over a new informational bulletin from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It clarifies the intent of existing federal policy to ensure children’s individualized benefits and care. The bulletin also reiterates expectations for state-level periodicity and payment policies that influence how care is provided in these programs. We see it…
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An Innovative Pilot Program to Provide Early Intervention for Illinois’ Lead Poisoned Children
Lead poisoning is the number one environmental health hazard affecting children. According to the CDC, over half a million children ages 1-5 have blood lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter, the reference level at which the CDC recommends public health actions be initiated. Yet, there is no known safe level of human exposure to…
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Proposed Fix to Harmful Medicaid Waivers Impacting Very Poor Parents in Alabama and Mississippi is no Fix at All
Both Alabama and Mississippi have submitted Medicaid Section 1115 waiver proposals that would impose work/community engagement requirements rules on poor parents and caregivers. Because these states have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and have some of them most restrictive eligibility limits in the nation, most people facing loss of health coverage due…
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Indexing Capital Gains Would Add to Deficit, Adversely Impact State Budgets and Imperil Medicaid Funding
Even though the Trump Administration almost certainly lacks the authority to do so, press reports indicate that the Administration is considering issuing a new regulation to provide another large tax cut for the wealthy. The regulation would index capital gains for inflation, substantially lowering the amounts that would be subject to taxation. As the Center…
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Bracing for an ACA Enrollment Season Without Navigators: Risks for Consumers and the Market
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on July 10, 2018 that they would fund up to $10 million for Navigator programs in the 34 federally facilitated marketplace (FFM) states in 2018, a 60 percent cut from 2017 funding levels, and an over 80 percent cut from the program’s original funding. CMS is also encouraging applicants to…
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Coverage That (Doesn’t) Count: How the Short-Term, Limited Duration Rule Could Lead to Underinsurance
Any day now, the Trump administration is expected to publish new rules that will expand access to short-term, limited duration insurance (STLDI). The proposed rule would allow STLDI plans to extend up to almost a full year, along with other changes that enable consumers to purchase STLDI as an alternative to comprehensive insurance products currently sold on the individual…
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Medicaid Waiver Wars: CMS Strikes Back
Late last month, a federal District Court ruled that the approval of the Kentucky Medicaid work requirements waiver by the Secretary of Health and Human Services was “arbitrary and capricious” because, among other things, even though the record showed that 95,000 people would lose Medicaid coverage, “the Secretary paid no attention to that deprivation.” The…
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Medicaid and Work: Fact and Fiction in Government Reports
Last week saw the release of two reports on Medicaid and work. One, from the nonpartisan Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), an arm of the Congress, is fact. The other, from the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), is fiction. The difference matters, because it goes to the basic identity of…
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Perry County to Tuscaloosa: A 70-Minute Drive for Rural Women Seeking Obstetrics Care
I have driven the 57 miles from Perry County, Alabama to Tuscaloosa many times, with long stretches of bumpy road that is marred by stop lights as you get closer to the city. All in all it’s about a 70-minute drive, a 70-minute drive residents of Perry County have to make if they need to…
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One Month into Medicaid Work Requirement in Arkansas, Warning Lights are Already Flashing
Arkansas’s Department of Human Services released numbers on its work requirement to a select group of reporters and officials late last Friday, and we just saw them earlier this week. The numbers confirm reports of widespread confusion over the work requirement’s rollout and exacerbate our fears that red tape will eventually lead to significant coverage…
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Public Comments Reflect Strong Opposition to Proposed CMS Medicaid Access Rule
Public comments matter – the recent federal court decision on the Kentucky HEALTH waiver proved that. And they matter not just on Section 1115 waivers; they matter on regulations as well. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, federal agencies have to provide the public with an opportunity to comment on a proposed regulation, and it has…
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School Readiness as an “Essential Quality Metric” for Children: A Hook for Medicaid in Cross-System Work
The importance of a child’s first months and years can’t be overstated. It’s a time of rapid brain development and learning, where relationships and environments set the course for a child’s lifelong trajectory—even shaping the architecture of the brain. In 2016, Medicaid and CHIP served close to half of all children under 6, and more…
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New Study Finds Evidence of a “Chilling Effect” in 2016 Marketplace Enrollment
There have been reports in the news of immigrant families decreasing their use of health care services and safety net programs because they fear that their information may be used to identify undocumented family members. A new study in the National Bureau of Economic Research explores this topic. Researchers examine the effects of Secure Communities,…
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Medicaid’s Vital Role for Schools and Students
It feels like summer just arrived, but back-to-school time is near! Before the back-to-school bell rings, we wanted to take stock of health coverage for school-age children. As SayAhhh! readers are well aware, Medicaid and CHIP, the primary public health coverage sources for children, have worked together in recent decades to bring the rate…
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A Disturbing Trend of Hiding the Coverage Losses is Emerging in Medicaid Waivers
For those of us closely watching the action on new Section 1115 Medicaid research and demonstration waivers that the Trump Administration has been inviting and approving this year, the recent court decision putting a hold on Kentucky’s plans was welcome news. The court ruled that the Secretary’s decision in granting the Medicaid waiver was “arbitrary…
