Say Ahhh!
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School Attendance and Health Care: Why Chronic Absenteeism Isn’t Just About Truancy
Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a two-part conversation with Attendance Works Director Hedy Chang. Chang spoke to us about the critical role health care can play in closing the attendance gap. Attendance Works is a national initiative aimed at advancing student success by removing barriers and encouraging children to attend school regularly. A report Attendance Works…
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Why ACA Marketplaces Should Report Comprehensive Enrollment Data
By Sean Miskell Data can play an important role in improving health care systems. The state-based marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are well positioned to advance policy decisions by disclosing detailed information about enrollment. Such information could improve oversight of the post-ACA insurance market, and help policymakers and others more easily identify…
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New Georgia Chartbook: Facts v. Presentation in Medicaid Expansion Debate
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute and Georgians for a Healthy Future released a great “back to basics” chart book last week explaining Medicaid in Georgia and how to use federal Medicaid dollars to close Georgia’s health insurance coverage gap. It includes easily understandable charts like this: and this: Most of all,…
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Congratulations to Miriam Harmatz: CCF’s 2015 Bulldog of the Year
For the second year in a row, CCF awarded an outstanding state partner with the Bulldog of the Year award. The Bulldog of the Year award recognizes an individual who exemplifies the characteristics of the bulldog (Georgetown University’s mascot) through their dedication to children and families and determination in the face of adversity. We were thrilled to name Miriam…
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Children’s Uninsured Rate Drops Significantly Thanks to the Affordable Care Act
By now you have heard the news that from 2013 to 2014 the country saw the greatest single year decline in the number of uninsured Americans on record with the overall uninsured rate falling to 10.4%. For children, using the American Community Survey data that was just released, the decline was smaller, but only because…
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What to know about the Census Bureau’s new ACS and CPS data on health coverage
On September 16, 2015 the Census Bureau will release data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and American Community Survey (ACS), providing updated income, poverty, and health insurance coverage rates for 2014. These reports should give the best picture of the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) major coverage expansions on the uninsured rate.…
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This Grandparent’s Day, Let’s Build a Brighter Future for Our Grandchildren
By Laura Brennaman, Florida CHAIN As a grandmother, nothing is more important to me than the health and well-being of my grandchildren. Health care coverage is essential to providing my grandchildren and all grandkids with the opportunity to reach their full potential. Health coverage not only provides our grandchildren with the care they need to…
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More than 400,000 Lose Marketplace Coverage: Let’s Fix This and Keep People Covered
Along with the headline yesterday that nearly 10 million consumers paid their premiums and had an active marketplace health insurance policy as of the end of June 2015, there was very disappointing news. The federally facilitated marketplace (FFM) already terminated overage for about 423,000 people with 2015 coverage who had immigration or citizenship status data matching…
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Victory in Washington State: Medicaid Developmental Screens
By Jon Gould, Children’s Alliance of Washington Developmental screens are some of the biggest cost-savers in the field of health; early detection in primary care pays off in preventive measures in the months and years ahead. Yet the 46 percent of the state’s children covered by Apple Health for Kids, who often suffer the worst…
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Urban Study Finds Uninsured Low Income Parents Are Key Beneficiaries of Medicaid Expansion
The latest round of data from the Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) measuring uninsured rates pre- and post-implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is out today and finds that parents have seen sharp declines in uninsured rates – from 17.3% in June 2013 to 10.4% in March 2015. This amounts to a…
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Seven Steps for Children’s Advocates Reviewing Essential Health Benefit Benchmarks
HHS recently posted the proposed 2017 Essential Health Benefit (EHB) benchmark benefit plans (BBP) and supporting documents for the 50 states and DC. Though the 30-day public comment period is short, it provides an important opportunity for state advocates and stakeholders to review their state’s EHB BBP and raise any concerns before final federal approval.…
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CMS Gives States Permanent Option to Use SNAP Data to Enroll and Renew Medicaid and CHIP
It started out as a targeted enrollment strategy – a fast and efficient way to get eligible people enrolled in the ACA’s expanded coverage options by using SNAP enrollment to identify low-income beneficiaries who were income eligible but not enrolled in Medicaid. After all, gross income eligibility for SNAP (aka food stamps) at 130% FPL…
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CMS Awards $67 Million to Assist Consumers with Accessing Coverage OE3 and Beyond
Let’s face it. Health insurance is complex, even for those of us who have worked in the field for years. Combine that with applying for means-tested financial assistance (through systems that are still being debugged), and there is no doubt that it can be a frustrating experience for consumers. Numerous studies have illustrated the critical…
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Why is North Carolina Getting Rid of Medicaid Managed Care Plan that Saves State Money?
Policymakers in many states have turned more and more to private managed care insurers to manage their Medicaid programs. More than half of people on Medicaid across the country are in some sort of “risk-based managed care organizations (MCOs)” and 39 states – according to comprehensive research by the Kaiser Family Foundation – use such…
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Michigan’s Medicaid Waiver Amendment: A Costly & Misguided Solution in Search of a Problem
Today, on September 1st, the state of Michigan submitted an amendment to its Section 1115 Medicaid expansion waiver to comply with a deadline established by state law (PA 107 passed in 2013). The same state statute specifies that if the changes described in the amendment are not approved by December 31, 2015 that the expansion…
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Early Returns From Medicaid Expansion: Studies Find New Enrollees Are Accessing Needed Care
One of the key arguments that opponents of expanding Medicaid make is that there is no point in doing so because access is so poor in Medicaid that it won’t actually help the intended beneficiaries get the care they need. There is certainly room for improvement in access to care for Medicaid beneficiaries, and it…
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Welcome Mat Effect: Oregon Data Demonstrates Parent and Child Coverage Follow Same Pattern
By Sophia Duong The graph above is the most telling figure from the study, “The Association Between Medicaid Coverage for Children and Parents Persists: 2002-2010,” which analyzes the relationship between parent and child enrollment in public coverage in Oregon from 2002 to 2010. In the graph, children’s coverage (represented by the dotted blue line) is…
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Unintended Consequences of the ACA: Retraction of Medicaid Eligibility for Parents in Connecticut
By Sharon Langer, Connecticut Voices for Children Research has consistently demonstrated that insuring parents is good for their health and their children’s. Children of parents insured through Medicaid are more likely to be covered and receive regular check-ups. In 2007, when Connecticut aligned its Medicaid income limit for parents and children at 185% FPL it…
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Consumer Assistance and Tools Needed to Ensure that All Eligible Marketplace Enrollees Get Cost-Sharing Reductions
Many of us have been asking this question for months: How many people who purchased coverage through the Marketplaces missed out on lower cost sharing because they did not enroll in a Silver plan? Now we have an estimate thanks to a new analysis by Avalere Health. Avalere’s headline – “More than 2 Million Exchange Enrollees…
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CHIP Change is Good News for Pennsylvania Children
By Michael Race, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children Pennsylvania is making some improvements to its Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to make sure all kids enrolled in CHIP receive health care coverage that meets the minimum standards of the federal Affordable Care Act. Gov. Tom Wolf announced this week that, starting Dec. 1, all CHIP plans…
