Blog
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1095B Forms May Cause Problems for Enrollees Who Transition from Marketplace to Medicaid Coverage
It’s tax time, and there is more to be said about the many issues that swirl around reconciliation of premium tax credits and accurate assessment of the penalty for going without health insurance. But there is one issue in particular that I am worried about for consumers who were enrolled in a Marketplace plan with…
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2016 Federal Poverty Levels Are Out; What Does This Mean for the Marketplace and Medicaid?
Last week, the 2016 federal poverty levels (FPL) were published in the federal register. How does this impact consumers applying for coverage through the Marketplace, Medicaid or CHIP? Let’s start with eligibility for Marketplace subsidies. For 2016 calendar year coverage, regardless of when someone applies or enrolls, eligibility is based on the 2015 FPL levels.…
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Children of Unauthorized Immigrant Parents Exposed to More Risk Factors
By John Allison A new report released by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), studying U.S. children with unauthorized immigrant parents, has found that such children are more exposed to risk factors that impact their well-being and future, and that this is unlikely to change without a change in immigration policy. Here’s what the report found:…
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“Healthy Students” Initiative Seeks to Help Children Achieve Better Health & Academic Success
Health care coverage helps children show up for school ready to learn and provides parents with the peace of mind of knowing they can afford to get their children the care they need to succeed. Sadly, many of America’s children are going without affordable coverage even though they are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but…
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Little Known Provision Keeps Kids From Slipping Through Cracks Due to Differences in Eligibility Rules
For the most part, the Affordable Care Act aligns the way that Medicaid determines eligibility based on the same Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) rules used to determine eligibility for financial assistance in the Marketplace. But there are exceptions in Medicaid as I outlined in this blog. The differences can mean that an individual is…
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Survey Shows States Made Significant Progress Implementing Data-Driven Eligibility in Medicaid
Eligibility decisions made in real-time or overnight when someone submits a Medicaid application? Automated determinations of ongoing eligibility at renewal without requiring enrollees to fill out forms or send in paperwork? It wasn’t too long ago that many Medicaid stakeholders would have thought those were pie-in-the sky notions. Yet, thanks to new high-performing eligibility systems…
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Closing the Medicaid Coverage Gap 101 (Video)
Have trouble explaining the Medicaid coverage gap to friends and neighbors in two minutes and thirty seconds? Want to talk about families with young children in the gap, the effect on hospitals and the fact that the majority of folks in the Medicaid gap are working? This short, animated informational video has the answers:
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With gains in health coverage, Latino children also gain more equitable opportunities.
By Steven Lopez, Health Policy Project, NCLR and Sonya Scwhartz, Georgetown University Center for Children and Families Our new report with National Council of La Raza finds that the uninsured rate for Hispanic kids hit a historic low and the coverage gap between Hispanic kids and their peers narrowed considerably in 2014, the year the Affordable Care…
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Louisiana Governor Edwards signs the executive order expanding Medicaid in Louisiana (Video)
On January 12, 2016 newly-elected Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed the executive order expanding Medicaid in Louisiana. This shouldn’t be a surprise – Medicaid expansion was a major issue in the campaign, with all candidates regardless of party pledging some sort of Medicaid expansion plans. However, Edwards was unequivocal during the campaign that he…
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A Gift for New Parents for the New Year
by Lorraine Gonzalez, Kate Breslin and Elisabeth Benjamin, Health Care for All NY On December 22, 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law (S4745/A7155) that will allow babies born into low and middle-income New York families eligible for the Child Health Plus (CHP), New York’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), from the day that…
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Arizona Kids are Falling Through the Cracks Without Active KidsCare Program
by Joe Fu, Children’s Action Alliance For the fifth year in a row, Arizona had the third highest child uninsured rate in the nation. In 2014, 10% of Arizona’s children were uninsured compared to about 6% nationally, according to a new report we released this week with Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. This…
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Awakening the Force of Two-Generations’ (Children and their Parents) Coverage, Access and Affordability: Historic Gains Worth Celebrating in 2016
By Liane Wong, Dr.P.H. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation While there’s been an incredible amount of buzz around the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” this December, a less heralded moment in history was made at the end of 2015. But it’s history worth celebrating for our nation’s families and children, and one…
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NEACH Summit Highlights Continuous Battle for Health Care Access and Coverage for Children
By Ben Koller, Community Catalyst Last month, children’s health advocates and experts from around New England gathered for the New England Alliance for Children’s Health’s (NEACH) annual Children’s Health Care Summit. NEACH, an initiative of Community Catalyst, is a broad-based coalition of health advocates, providers, and legal experts dedicated to improving children’s access to high-quality,…
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Permanent 90/10 Rule Will Help States Continue Efforts to Modernize IT Systems
Although final publication of the 90/10 rule – providing generous, enhanced federal funding for Medicaid eligibility and enrollment systems – doesn’t quite bring the surprise of opening an unexpected holiday gift, it is still gives us many reasons to celebrate. If CMS had allowed the enhanced funding to expire as initially planned, states would have…
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Premium Assistance and Wrapped Benefits Part 2: A Startling Discovery
As I blogged about last week, our recent report with co-authors at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured looked at wrapped benefits and how they are working in selected Section 1906 premium assistance programs. The most startling discovery to me was the finding that families have no cost-sharing protections in the programs we…
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South Dakota Governor on Medicaid Expansion – “Promising,” but “not a done deal”
Governor Dennis Daugaard lays out the case for Medicaid expansion in his FY17 Budget Address on December 8, 2015. While saying the discussions around expansion in his state are “promising,” Daugaard cautions that it is “not a done deal” and still requires both Native American tribal approval as well as approval by the South Dakota…
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New Research: Public Coverage Working Better for Children than Private
A timely new study published in JAMA Pediatrics compares how effective coverage under arrangements in Medicaid, CHIP, and private coverage are in meeting children’s health needs. With our recent report out on children’s uninsurance rates in the nation and all 50 states, this data provides insight into access, quality, and cost of health care services…
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Senate reconciliation bill repeals key children’s health provisions
So despite a bipartisan CHIP extension earlier this year, it appears that children’s coverage is not as popular as we may have thought. In fact, if the reconciliation bill as passed becomes law there is a good reason to believe that millions of children would become uninsured; almost assuredly the historic and steady reductions in the…
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Senate Bill Would Result in Coverage Loss for Six Million Newly Medicaid Insured Adults and Children’s Uninsured Rate will Increase Sharply, Reversing Historic and Bipartisan Gains
The United States Senate just passed a bill that would effectively repeal multiple provisions of the Affordable Care Act and result in at least 22 million Americans becoming uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office warned in its analysis of the legislation that major health insurance market disruption would be very likely, noting that: “[R]epealing the subsidies…
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Premium Assistance and Wrapped Benefits: Do They Work?
Author’s note: This is the first in a two (or possibly three) part blog series – the next installment will ponder this question with a particular eye to the future of children’s coverage… Along with co-authors MaryBeth Musumeci and Robin Rudowitz at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Sean Miskell and I undertook…