Say Ahhh!
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CCF Hosts Webinar on Medicaid and CHIP Financing
After months of vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Congress and the new administration are now signaling that they’re not going to stop there. Policymakers are already talking about capping or block granting Medicaid and holding up needed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Such changes would leave states struggling to meet the…
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What Does President Trump’s Executive Order Mean for the Affordable Care Act?
As you may have heard, President Trump issued an executive order about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on his inauguration day, but what’s been less clear is what exactly it means. Can the President repeal the ACA by executive order? The short answer is no. The ACA became law when it was passed by Congress…
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Arkansas Will be Particularly Hard Hit by Repeal of ACA
As regular readers of Say Ahhh! know, Arkansas has a unique approach to Medicaid expansion, known as “Arkansas Works” or the “private option,” which relies on the federal marketplace to provide coverage to Medicaid expansion enrollees instead of using Medicaid plans and providers to deliver coverage. As a result, the current plan by Congressional leaders…
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CBO: Repealing ACA Would Double Number of Uninsured in Two Years
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released an updated projection on how repealing the ACA through budget reconciliation would lead to rising numbers of uninsured and increases in premiums on the marketplace. CBO based projections on the Reconciliation Act passed in 2015 and vetoed by President Obama, which would have…
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How Should We Be Thinking About CHIP in the New World Order?
Recent press accounts have noted that Republicans are thinking about using the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as a bargaining tool to entice Democrats to vote for health legislation that replaces the Affordable Care Act (ACA). CHIP’s funding expires on September 30, 2017, which means that Congress must act soon to ensure that it continues…
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Council of Economic Advisers Reports Uninsured Rate Now at Lowest Point in History
Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report demonstrating that historic progress on health insurance coverage is due, in large part, to the ACA. Since the ACA took effect, an estimated 20 million additional adults gained health insurance, the children’s uninsured rate fell by almost half, and the overall uninsured rate fell to…
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What Does Senate Passage of the Budget Mean for Children and Families?
Early this morning the Senate passed its fiscal year 2017 budget, with a vote of 51-48. The budget now heads to the House for consideration and a vote, which is expected tomorrow. But what does the budget say, and more importantly, what does it mean for children and families? The budget establishes funding levels for…
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ACA Repeal Would Lavish Medicare Tax Cuts on 400 Highest-Income Households
By Brandon Debot, Chye-Ching Huang, and Chuck Marr, originally posted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Republicans’ planned bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is expected to be similar to the repeal bill that President Obama vetoed in January 2016, would provide an immediate windfall tax cut to the highest-income Americans…
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Kaiser Family Foundation & CCF Release 50-State Medicaid/CHIP Survey
Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families released their annual 50-state survey on Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, renewal and cost-sharing policies. The survey is a “must read” report for anyone interested in health care policy and its impact on low-income children and families across the country. Tricia…
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Research Shows Fewer Jobs, Greater Financial Burden on Providers, States, & Local Governments if ACA Repealed
Taken together, three recent papers provide a sobering look at the extensive economic consequences for providers if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed. Just last week, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation published “The Impact on Health Care Providers of Partial ACA Repeal through Reconciliation,” an analysis from the Urban Institute. Their main finding? Repeal…
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Busting the “Falling under its Own Weight” Myth: New Analysis Shows Better Outlook for the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces
By Rachel Schwab, originally posted on CHIRblog It’s a new year, and with it comes new hope for the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchanges. Wall Street analysts recently released research that shows improvements in insurers’ finances for 2016, predicting even better margins for future years. But just as the markets are starting to stabilize, the…
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The Return on Investment of Medicaid Expansion: Supporting Work and Health in Rural Ohio
By Loren Anthes, MBA, Fellow, Center for Medicaid Policy, originally posted by the Center for Community Solutions When debating the Medicaid expansion in 2013, the Ohio legislature appropriately questioned whether expanding the program to non-disabled adults would be done so efficiently, supporting the health, welfare, and economy of Ohio and its citizens. The subsequent policy process reflected…
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For Mental Health Services, Would ACA Repeal Turn ‘Warm Handoff’ into Cold Shoulder?
One of the few points of bipartisan agreement in Congress last year was finding ways to support mental health services. The 21st Century Cures Act passed in Congress and signed by the President just last month took steps to integrate mental health into primary care services, expand the pool of providers and improve the interactions…
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Three Ways to Ensure EPSDT Works in Managed Care
We are continuing our look at EPSDT, this time turning to EPSDT and managed care. Nearly 9 out of 10 children in Medicaid and CHIP receive services through some type of managed care arrangement, so understanding how EPSDT works in a managed care context is critical. If you followed our work on managed care over…
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50-State Report Examines Economic Repercussions of ACA Repeal
Leighton Ku and his colleagues at George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health and the Commonwealth Fund just published a very important new report with state-by-state estimates on how many jobs would be lost if the Affordable Care Act is repealed without a replacement attached. The report found that repealing the tax credits and…
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The ACA Transformed Medicaid Enrollment Processes. Rolling Them Back Would Wreak Havoc.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, is most widely known for strengthening consumer protections in private insurance and creating new pathways to affordable coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplaces and Medicaid. Less familiar is another aspect of the law—the ACA’s Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) rules and systems—that sought to align eligibility among the…
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Loss of Cost-Sharing Reductions in ACA Marketplace: Impact on Consumers and Insurer Participation
While there has been considerable discussion of the new Congress’s plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there is another, potentially more immediate, threat to millions of Americans that could materialize without legislative action. Under the ACA, insurers must reduce the cost-sharing obligations of low-income enrollees, such as their copayments and deductibles.…
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New Study Finds Severe Consequences For Children And Families If ACA Is Repealed: The Number Of Uninsured Children And Parents Would More Than Double
A new report by leading child health economists at the Urban Institute models a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through reconciliation and its impact on children and parents. The study found that the number of uninsured children would more than double under a partial repeal as compared to current law: an additional…
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Repealing the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion: What’s at Risk
In this new Kaiser Family Foundation report on the consequences for Medicaid expansion if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is repealed, two numbers particularly stand out: 11 million adults have gained Medicaid coverage in 31 states and DC because of the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Through mid 2015, Medicaid expansion states have…
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Latino Child Health Coverage Rate Reaches Record High, But Threats Loom
Originally posted by NCLR Latino children with health coverage reached a record high 92.5 percent in 2015, the second year after key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect, according to our new joint report with the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. These gains are part of overall coverage gains for…
