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  • States Work to Curb Drug Spending: Tight Budgets Lead to New Approaches to Managing Costs

    Alisa Chester

    Prescription drug spending in the United States continues to grow, totaling $477 billion in 2016. Spending by Medicaid, which is jointly funded by states and the federal government, surpassed $31 billion that year. These rising costs have strained state budgets, leading policymakers to look for strategies—within Medicaid and beyond—to better manage spending while ensuring a patient’s access to…

  • Show Me Your Budget, and I’ll Tell You What You Value (Hint: It’s Not Medicaid in Schools)

    CCFadmin

    President Trump’s FY19 budget once again seeks to end Medicaid as we know it. The budget embraces a per-capita cap funding proposal frequently referred to as “Graham-Cassidy” that would replace the existing federal-state financial partnership with capped Medicaid funding at a set amount per beneficiary—regardless of the costs to the state. Specifically, the President’s FY19…

  • Research Update: Can Parents in Non-Expansion States Meet a Work Requirement and Remain Medicaid-Eligible?

    Karina Wagnerman

    This week, I am reading a study examining Medicaid work requirements in non-expansion states. My colleague, Joan Alker, recently wrote about Mississippi’s waiver request, which is currently up for public comment and includes a work requirement targeted at very poor parents and caretaker relatives with household incomes below 27% FPL. A new study examines whether…

  • How Are “Healthy Behavior” Requirements Working in Iowa?

    CCFadmin

    Iowa is adding to the evidence that requiring specific “healthy behaviors” of Medicaid enrollees is an ineffective way to improve health outcomes. In 2013, Iowa got approval from CMS to expand Medicaid to adults up to 133 percent of poverty by way of an 1115 waiver. That waiver allowed the state to charge premiums to…

  • Mississippi Medicaid Waiver Could Lead to Coverage Losses for Very Poor Families

    Joan Alker

    I recently pulled out my calculator to look into the budget neutrality assumptions underlying Mississippi’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver, and the results were disturbing. I unpacked this waiver in a previous blog. Kansas has a similar request pending[note]It is possible that Kansas may withdraw this request due to pending action by the state legislature.[/note] and…

  • Administration’s Budget Proposal Includes $1.4 Trillion in Medicaid Cuts

    Andy Schneider

    The Administration today released a budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts on October 1 (FY 2019).  On the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the budget proposal is irrelevant.  The budget proposes to extend CHIP through 2019; as Kelly Whitener explains, the Bipartisan Budget Act signed into law last week extends CHIP through 2027. …

  • Bipartisan Budget Act Funds CHIP for Four More Years and Includes Other Important Health Care Provisions

    Kelly Whitener

    Congress passed another short-term continuing resolution (CR) early this morning after a brief government shutdown. The Bipartisan Budget Act funds the government through March 23, but this one is very different from the previous CRs. One metric of how it’s different is the length – this one comes in at over 650 pages whereas the…

  • Indiana’s Waiver Approval Adds More Barriers to Medicaid Coverage

    Joan Alker

    Following the recent approval of Kentucky’s waiver, Indiana becomes the second major waiver approval by the Trump Administration which establishes more barriers to Medicaid coverage. This is an unfortunate but not surprising turn of events. It’s worth noting that Indiana’s own evaluation shows numerous barriers to coverage already existing in Indiana’s HIP 2.0 program, yet…

  • Medicaid is Critical for Young Children and Their Parents – Time to Tackle Real Barriers to Work Like Affordable Child Care

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Last month, I blogged about a helpful new 50-state report by our friends at the Urban Institute that breaks down coverage for children 3 and under and their parents. This week they released an update to this report with 2016 data and even looked at metro area coverage for young children.   The upshot? Again,…

  • Idaho Goes Rogue: State Authorizes Sale of Health Plans that Violate the Affordable Care Act

    Sabrina Corlette

    As instructed by Governor Butch Otter’s recent executive order, the Idaho department of insurance (DOI) has published rules for new, “state-based” health plans that are exempt from many of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The state’s goal appears to be to provide a cheaper alternative to Idahoans than ACA-compliant plans. They do…

  • Together, Medicaid and CHIP cover more than 4 in 10 young children in most metropolitan areas

    CCFadmin

    After states faced funding shortfalls because of Congress’s failure to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by its original September 30, 2017, deadline, Congress last week finally agreed to fund an extension of the program for six years. This agreement was much needed for the children whose coverage hung in the balance at pivotal…

  • Research Update: The Links Between Medicaid and Schools in the Data and Research

    Karina Wagnerman

    We recently updated our state-by-state data on the share of children with Medicaid coverage by school district. Medicaid spent about $4 billion on school based health care services in 2015. There was wide variation by state: Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas each had at least $250,000,000 in Medicaid spending on school…

  • Tackling Health Barriers to Learning – Does Your State Mandate Student Health Screenings?

    Candace Webb

    The link between a student’s health status and learning has been well established in the literature. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, “healthy students are better learners” and “schools are the right place for a healthy start.” Maximizing the school experience and success of every American…

  • Mothers Mentoring Mothers

    CCFadmin

    More than 4.8 million American children (6 percent) lack health insurance. Among uninsured US children, 62-72 percent are eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). For uninsured, low-income children, 84 percent are eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP. Racial/ethnic disparities exist in insurance coverage for U.S. children: compared…

  • Want to Reduce your State’s Infant Mortality Rate? Try Expanding Medicaid

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Evidence continues to build on the benefits of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion for adults: improving health coverage and access, promoting family economic security, and creating peace of mind for the whole family (including, and especially, children). And here’s another study for the maternal and child health community: A new study published online last week in the American Journal…

  • HEALTHY KIDS ACT (Helping Ensure Access for Little Ones, Toddlers and Hopeful Youth by Keeping Insurance Delivery Stable Act)

    Kelly Whitener

    As we have noted in earlier posts, the Continuing Resolution (CR) passed on January 22 includes six years of funding for CHIP and other CHIP-related provisions that we’ll unpack here. Funding CHIP is now funded through federal fiscal year 2023, or September 30, 2023. Though the Secretary will have to determine the allotment amount for…

  • Weaponizing Medicaid Paperwork

    Andy Schneider

    It turns out that CMS has a “Patients Over Paperwork” initiative, which the agency describes as “our effort to reduce administrative burden and improve the customer experience while putting patients first.” Who knew? If you’ve been following Administrator Verma’s crusade to condition Medicaid coverage on meeting requirements to document work, you would be quite surprised.…

  • CHIP Extended for 6 Years – A Huge Relief but Long Overdue

    Joan Alker

    The House and Senate finally passed a continuing resolution that extends the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years incorporating the policy language that is essentially the same as the deal that Senators Hatch and Wyden agreed to back in September.[1] The fact that CHIP was extended 114 days after funding expired is unprecedented and…

  • What Does a Government Shutdown Mean for Medicaid and CHIP?

    Kelly Whitener

    [Editor’s Note: If you reached this post while searching for information on how the current partial government shutdown is impacting health coverage, please read this new blog by Andy Schneider.] Even if you weren’t glued to CSPAN 2 on Friday night, you now know about the federal government shutdown. Many articles have been written about…

  • Government Shutdown – Where Does CHIP Stand?

    Joan Alker

    I am not sure why I thought I would find it cathartic to write a blog on a Friday night explaining what we know about where things stand on CHIP. It’s been hard to listen to all the political grandstanding as the government shutdown looms. I looked up the first blog I wrote saying that…