Blog
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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…
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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…
