Blog
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Will Congress Convert Bipartisan Support for CHIP into Action for Kids?
Last week I attended and spoke at a wonderful child health symposium at West Virginia University’s John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics. Senator Rockefeller was there sharing his inspiration and wisdom and emphasizing the bipartisan spirit in which the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was born 20 years ago. Today, thanks to…
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U.S. Continues Progress in Children’s Health: Over 95% of U.S. Children Have Health Insurance
Today the Census Bureau partially released the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS) health insurance data. According to the data, the insured rate among children under age 19 is now at an all-time high of 95.3 percent. This continues the upward trend of the children’s insured rate since 2008. Overall, 2016 shows promising developments for children’s…
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States Take the Lead with Policies to Protect Residents with Chronic Conditions from High Out-of-Pocket Drug Costs
This blog post originally appeared on the Center on Health Insurance Reforms blog. While there were many campaign promises to lower prescription drug costs, to date there’s been little federal action to reduce prescription drug prices or lower patients’ costs. States, however, are taking the lead with policies designed to protect consumers from the high…
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Medicaid: The Port in a Storm for Children and Families
As Harvey and Irma remind us, natural disasters happen. And when they do, they threaten the health of children and families and the ability of providers to deliver needed services. It takes time for displaced families, providers, and communities to get back on their feet. It also takes resources. While federal Medicaid funds are always…
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Reduced Funding for Navigators and Public Education Could Harm Nation’s Success in Covering Kids
No smart business stops investing in marketing and customer support when sales are down. But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is doing by cutting funding for advertising and navigators. The recent announcement that CMS is decreasing Healthcare.gov’s direct marketing budget by 90 percent and reducing funding to navigator entities by almost half is shortsighted for…
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Will Congress Act in Time to Keep CHIP Coverage in Place for Kids?
Last month, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of CHIP – an acronym that needs no explanation to readers of Say Ahhh! Over the years, CHIP’s high profile and strong bipartisan popularity has played a significant role in advancing children’s coverage, along with earlier expansions of Medicaid to the most vulnerable children. CHIP spurred states to…
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HHS Bulletin on Medicaid and CHIP Managed Care Regulations Raises Red Flags
Last year, HHS finalized changes to the Medicaid and CHIP managed care regulations to modernize and streamline program rules for the first time in over a decade. Nearly 9 in 10 children enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP get their care through some type of managed care arrangement, so we teamed up with NHeLP to review the rules…
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Back-to-School Season Focuses Attention on Need to Connect More Kids with Health Coverage
Children’s health advocates have their hands full trying to preserve Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for America’s children, but they can’t slow down on their efforts to connect more kids with coverage. Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are unenrolled because their parents aren’t aware of the option…
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Shielding Children from the Rising Costs of Prescription Drugs
Consider three different drugs that are used by children. Amoxicillin is an inexpensive antibiotic that might be prescribed when a child has an ear infection. Typically, this generic drug would cost between $5 and $15 for a one-time prescription. Antibiotics are the most common type of drug used by children under age 6. EpiPen is…
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Recent Research Shows Disparities in Health Care Access Reduced After The ACA
We know that access to health care is correlated with many demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The Affordable Care Act, through the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace, extended coverage to uninsured populations with the hope of reducing disparities in access to health care. After the first couple of years of the insurance expansions, research shows that…
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Arkansas’s Laura Kellams Receives Georgetown CCF’s 2017 Bulldog Award
In 2014, we started the “Bulldog of the Year” award, to honor a state advocate that embodies bulldog-like tenacity and stubbornness in the quest to improve health care for children. (Georgetown’s mascot, Jack, is a bulldog.) I was so excited that one of my favorite people on the planet, Laura Kellams, was awarded this year’s…
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Arkansas and Nevada Latest to Eliminate 5-Year Waiting Period for Lawfully Residing Children
The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 gave states the option to improve Medicaid access by waiving the 5-year waiting period for lawfully residing immigrant children. With Arkansas and Nevada coming on board, this option has now been adopted by 33 states. Earlier this year, the Arkansas legislature passed a resolution to waive…
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Lots of Questions but Few Answers: NAIC’s 2017 Summer Meeting
Originally posted on CHIRblog. For those who follow the fate of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, it’s hard to escape the daily reports of the status of federal funding for cost-sharing reductions(CSR), the subsidies that lower out-of-pocket costs for low-income marketplace enrollees. The Trump administration won’t commit to funding the reimbursements to insurers for the rest of 2017…
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Arizona Children Most at Risk if Congress Fails to Renew CHIP
As the deadline to extend Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding looms, states are in the difficult position of deciding what to do if new funds don’t materialize. As we’ve written before, Arizona is squarely in the crosshairs as the state whose children are most immediately at risk if CHIP funding is not renewed during…
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Medicaid: Stronger After Senate Rejects Cap
A dramatic 49-51 vote in the Senate last Friday brought an end to the effort to cap federal payments to state Medicaid programs–at least for now. This was the third major push to cap federal payments to states in Medicaid’s 52-year history. In 1981, President Reagan and his Budget Director, David Stockman, narrowly failed in…
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CHIP Programs Cannot Be Shut Down on a Moment’s Notice – Congress Needs to Make Decision on CHIP’s Future
Most CHIP directors I have known over the years are truly committed to the mission of covering children. They recognize the importance of coverage to children’s healthy development, along with the economic security and peace of mind it provides to families. So no doubt many CHIP directors are biting their nails over the fact that…
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CHIP Turns 20: A Not So Happy Birthday
Saturday marks the twentieth anniversary of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which was signed into law on August 5th, 1997 by President Bill Clinton as part of the Balanced Budget Act. As readers of SayAhhh! know, CHIP and its companion Medicaid, have done an amazing job of reducing the number of uninsured children to…
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What Every Policy Maker Needs to Know about the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – A Refresher
Much to our pleasant surprise here at CCF, the recent health care debate elevated and educated many lawmakers on the role of Medicaid for children and families. Medicaid, of course, is the foundation of health coverage for children in the U.S.—a fact that was often overlooked until recently, even by health-savvy lawmakers. But Say Ahhh!…
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New Pediatric Quality Core Measure Set Released by Collaborative of Public and Private Payers
About a year and a half ago, CMS, commercial health plans, Medicare and Medicaid managed care plans, purchasers, physician and other health-related professional groups, and consumers teamed up to reach consensus on core quality measures that would be reported across payers in the public and private sectors. The initiative, known as the Core Quality Measures…
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Medicaid Expansion Reduced Unpaid Medical Debt, Improved Financial Well-Being for Families
As readers of Say Ahhh! know, we are always interested in new Medicaid research on access to care and economic security. Two recent studies focus on these topics, examining Medicaid enrollees’ satisfaction with health care and the financial aspects of having Medicaid. The first study uses new data from the first-ever national Medicaid Consumer Assessment…
