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Say Ahhh!

  • Medicaid Scorecard Misses the Mark on State and Federal Accountability

    Tricia Brooks

    With a lot of fanfare but not much input from experts and stakeholders, CMS revealed its new “Medicaid scorecard” that received mixed reviews this week. CMS Administrator Seema Verma’s reluctance to talk about how the scorecard may be used in the future added suspense to speculation about the potential for CMS to use the tool…

  • New Federal CHIP Law Will Protect Florida’s Children

    Joan Alker

    The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is extremely important to Florida as it helps about 345,000 Florida children get the health care they need to support their healthy development and succeed in school. CHIP has also worked hand-in-hand with Medicaid to reduce Florida’s child uninsured rate to an all time low of 6.2 percent in…

  • South Carolina’s Medicaid Proposal Will Harm Children and Families

    Joan Alker

    South Carolina is the latest state to consider imposing a work requirement on parents receiving Medicaid. While there’s no formal proposal yet, officials have outlined their plans in a concept paper that raises as many questions as it answers. In a report we released today, we outline the problems with imposing a work requirement in…

  • Congress Proposes Fix to Provide Medicaid for Former Foster Youth Up to Age 26

    Tricia Brooks

    At long last, a fix in the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid coverage for former foster youth up to age 26 is back on the table in Congress. I last wrote about this issue almost three years ago, so it has taken far too long for Congress to correct a technical error in the drafting of…

  • Family Separation at Border Exposes Children to Potentially Irreparable Harm

    Kelly Whitener

    Recently, the Administration announced a change in immigration policy that has resulted in at least 700 children being separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border since October 1. Historically, crossing the border illegally was considered a civil offense and parents were able to stay with their children while legal proceedings were carried out (for…

  • Why Virginia Expanded Medicaid: Five Key Reasons

    Adam Searing

    Virginia decided today to expand Medicaid, which will allow the state to start to cover approximately 400,000 people who are unable to afford health plans yet too poor to get tax credit subsidies to buy insurance. This is a significant win for Virginians and for bipartisan cooperation in an increasingly partisan age as a newly-elected…

  • A Conversation on Meaningful Family Engagement, from Clinical Care to Health Policy

    CCFadmin

    For families of children who have complex medical conditions, equal partnership in multiple levels of care is essential to positive outcomes for their children. A recent article Families of Children With Medical Complexity: A View From the Front Lines provides an overview of care management from the perspective of parents who have children with complex…

  • Research Update: Uninsured Rate for Adults in Non-Expansion States Continues to Increase, Expanding Medicaid Could Reverse The Trend

    Karina Wagnerman

    Readers of SayAhhh! may have noticed the press coverage about the uninsured rate holding steady through 2017. While it is true that progress reducing the rate of uninsured children and the overall population has effectively stalled, there are some groups lagging behind. This week, I am reading studies about (1) the growing gap in the…

  • CHIP Rescissions – Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

    Kelly Whitener

    Two weeks ago, the Administration revealed its budget rescission proposal – $15 billion in rescissions, almost half of which would come from CHIP. Joan Alker wrote about the proposal and its implications, including an update after CBO weighed in later in the week to say that the rescissions “would not affect outlays or the number…

  • Trump Administration Will Drive Up Child Uninsured Rates if Public Charge Guidance is Issued

    Kelly Whitener

    [Editor’s Note: On September 22, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security posted a draft regulation that would change the public charge test. The posted draft is different from “leaked” versions analyzed here in several key respects, and the conclusions of this blog post should not be used in reference to the September 22 posting. The posted draft…

  • Proposed Changes to Medicaid Access Rule Would Exempt 18 States

    Karina Wagnerman

    In March, CMS proposed changes to the Medicaid Access Rule. That Rule, in effect only since 2016, establishes procedures that states must meet to demonstrate that they are complying with the Medicaid statute’s requirement that provider payment rates be sufficient to ensure Medicaid beneficiaries have access to care.   We recently shared our comments on the…

  • Proposed Changes to Medicaid Access Rule Could Lead to Deep Cuts in EPSDT Services

    Karina Wagnerman

    We have been busy working on our comments on the proposed rule that would make significant changes to the Medicaid Access Rule. As my colleague, Andy Schneider, wrote last month, one of the major changes in the proposed rule is to allow states to make fee-for-service payment cuts of 4% a year (6% over two…

  • Proposed Changes to Medicaid Access Rule Would Undermine Access to Care

    Andy Schneider

    CMS published proposed changes to the Medicaid Access Rule in the Federal Register on March 23 that would have a far-reaching impact on Medicaid beneficiaries and providers. Now that we’ve had time to analyze how the proposed changes would impact children, families and others who rely on Medicaid to meet their health care needs, we…

  • Outreach and Enrollment Grants to Miss Critical Back-to-School Period Due to CHIP Funding Delay

    Kelly Whitener

    The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 created a grant program to improve outreach and enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP. The HEALTHY KIDS and ACCESS Acts marked the third extension of this program earlier this year. To date, this program has provided four rounds of grants to community-based organizations and states as well…

  • $7 Billion in CHIP Cuts?

    Joan Alker

    [Editor’s Note: After this blog was published, CBO Director Keith Hall responded to a request from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to project the impact of the $7 billion CHIP rescission package. The CBO letter estimates that the rescission “would not affect outlays, or the number of individuals with insurance coverage.”  This projection is not…

  • Medicaid Benefits for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

    Kelly Whitener

    Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Bridgeport, West Virginia and join the experts behind the Mountaineer Autism Project for their 2018 conference. The conference brought together families of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and the providers who serve them. I helped kick things off by outlining the Medicaid benefits for children with ASD,…

  • Kansas Legislators Reject a New Barrier to Medicaid Coverage for Very Poor Parents and CMS Just Might Agree

    Joan Alker

    At CCF we have been doing a lot of work lately trying to educate folks about who exactly is impacted by Medicaid waivers that create new barriers to coverage in states that have not accepted the option to expand Medicaid. As our recent reports on Alabama and Mississippi show, these work requirement proposals will result…

  • Medicaid Helps Babies Get What They Need to Thrive

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    It bears repeating: The first three years of a child’s life shape the rest. During that short time period, babies and toddlers form more than one million new neural connections every second. Their positive development depends on nurturing relationships and environments that promote health and learning. When they don’t get what their brains need to thrive—especially…

  • New multi-generational effort for oral health

    CCFadmin

    Dental coverage for children, especially children in underserved communities, has been a primary focus for Children’s Dental Health Project over the course of our 20 years. In fact, as a result of our efforts and the partnerships we’ve been able to build, 90 percent of children now have dental coverage. But, for us, dental coverage alone is not…