Blog
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Cutting Medicaid Would Hurt Public School’s Efforts to Improve Student Success
The School Superintendent’s Association just released a survey documenting the concerns that superintendents and other school leaders have about Congressional plans to cut Medicaid spending. CCF spoke with Sasha Pudelski, author of the report Cutting Medicaid: A Prescription to Hurt the Neediest Kids, about the impact Medicaid cuts would have on students and schools. Can…
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Affordable Care Act Repeal Efforts Would Impact State Laws, Too
By Kevin Lucia and Katie Keith, originally posted on CHIRblog With much of the attention over ACA repeal efforts focused on Washington DC, it’s easy to forget that repeal-and-replacement efforts would significantly affect state approaches to insurance regulation. This is especially true in the 32 states and D.C. that have adopted state-level ACA protections. While…
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Risky Business: Health Actuaries Assess the Individual Market and Rates
By Rachel Schwab, originally posted on CHIRblog Health reform is often a series of what-ifs. As we wade into the uncertainty of congressional action, Executive Orders, and “the greatest replacement plan ever,” consumers and insurers alike have to hedge their bets and carefully calculate the impact of a number of unknown outcomes. Unfortunately sometimes it…
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Georgetown CCF Welcomes National Medicaid Expert Andy Schneider to our Team
It is with great pleasure that I am able to share some wonderful news with SayAhhh! readers about the latest addition to our team here at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. For Medicaid cognoscenti, Andy Schneider needs no introduction as there are few individuals who are more integral to the development of the Medicaid…
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ACA Repeal & Medicaid Cuts Would Make it Tougher for Arkansas to Meet Education Goals
Last month, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vowed to make third-grade reading a top priority, building on the impressive work the state has already done to bring more children into early education programs. Now the federal push to scrap the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and change the way we provide health care to families threatens to…
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Uncertain Future for the Affordable Care Act Leads Insurers to Rethink Participation, Prices
By Sabrina Corlette, Kevin Lucia, Justin Giovannelli and Dania Palanker, originally posted on CHIRblog The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is facing an uncertain future, with a new President and Congress committed to its repeal. Upcoming policy debates could have a dramatic impact on the individual health insurance market, especially the ACA’s marketplaces. While millions of…
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Prior to the ACA, Where You Lived Determined How Accessible and Affordable Coverage Would Be
By Sandy Ahn, originally posted on CHIRblog Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), what state you lived in determined how easily you could purchase a health plan, the price, and what the plan would cover in the individual market. Rules varied by state, but one common fact was that insurers could use your health status…
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Medicaid Fulfills Crucial Role for Children with Special Health Care Needs Like My Daughter
My daughter Caroline is alive because of Medicaid. The medications, the equipment and the nursing care that have helped us manage her severe disability would not be possible without the federal program’s support. Now, with Congress and the White House considering cuts and restructuring for Medicaid, it’s important to consider children like Caroline. We welcomed…
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Federal Medicaid Cuts Would Be a Double Whammy for Vulnerable Young Children in Texas
Lately, we’ve been laser focused on potential threats ahead at the federal level. But as state legislative sessions start anew, it’s a good reminder that policymaking swirls ahead in state capitals as well. As our friends at Texans Care for Children described, last year’s Medicaid therapy cuts in Texas are already shutting out some young children…
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Complicated Cassidy-Collins Plan to Replace ACA Falls Short
With pressure building around repealing the ACA without a replacement plan, various “replacement” plans are starting to pop up – most recently this bill from Senators Cassidy and Collins. Sarah Lueck at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities posted a thoughtful analysis of the bill’s key provisions and Timothy Jost offers even more details…
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Senators’ ACA Replacement Won’t Likely Give States, Patients the Choices They Seek
By Sarah Lueck, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senators Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins say their new proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would allow people who like the coverage they have to keep it. But now that we have more details about the proposal, it’s hard to see how that could…
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Research Documents Positive Impact of Medicaid Expansion
The future of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion is unclear, but new research is making it quite clear that Medicaid expansion is a smart investment. In the last few weeks, researchers addressed several questions that many wondered about before most states implemented the expansion. Let’s take a trip down memory lane… Will expanding Medicaid…
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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…
