Blog
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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…
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Report Underscores Connection Between Children’s Health and Educational Opportunity
By Sean Miskell Access to quality health coverage for children is certainly important for its own sake, and evidence increasingly suggests the way in which health is connected to other crucial aspect’s of children’s development such as education. A new report from the Education Commission of the States sheds further light on these connections and…
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One Small Step Forward for Transparency & Regulatory Oversight
By Sabrina Corlette, Center on Health Insurance Reforms We at CHIR have been urging the federal agencies responsible for implementing the Affordable Care Act (the Departments of Health & Human Services, Labor and Treasury, often called the “tri-agencies”) to move forward with two key provisions designed to improve health plan transparency and regulatory oversight. The…
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How will Premium Rate Changes Affect Consumers’ Renewals into Marketplace Coverage?
By Sandy Ahn, Center on Health Insurance Reforms In a few weeks we’ll know just to what extent premium rates have changed for marketplace health plans in 2016 as states conclude their rate reviews by August 25. As we found in a recent report examining consumers’ renewal experiences in six state-based marketplaces, price is the…
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A Look at the Latest Controversy Brewing over the ACA: The Annual Limit on Out-of Pocket Costs
By JoAnn Volk, Center on Health Insurance Reforms The latest dust up in Washington is a fight between the Obama Administration and employer groups over the Affordable Care Act provision that limits consumers’ annual out-of-pocket costs. Employers are concerned that recent administration guidance “clarifying” the rules to implement this policy will increase their costs, particularly…
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Proposed Rule Will Improve Medicaid Managed Care
After much anticipation, CMS published a notice of proposed rulemaking on Medicaid and CHIP managed care early this summer. The proposed rule includes many changes centering around five principles: alignment with other coverage options; delivery system reform; payment and accountability improvements; beneficiary protections; and modernizing regulatory requirements and improving the quality of care. It also…
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Coverage for Immigrant Children and Families in California
Now Playing: Coverage for more than 400,000 children and youth Coming Soon: Coverage for more than 800,000 additional immigrant children, youth and parents This week, Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families and The Children’s Partnership released a new paper outlining how to get ready for big coverage opportunities in California. It highlights opportunities that will…
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Getting Ready for OE3 – New Kaiser Family Foundation Survey Provides Helpful Lessons
By Hannah Ellison and Sabrina Corlette, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms It’s the dog days of August and many of us are in beach mode, but we at CHIR are getting geared up. We’re just 12 weeks away from the start of the third open enrollment period (OE3) for the Affordable Care Act’s health…
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Recommendations for Changes to the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures
When CHIP was reauthorized in 2009, it laid out a new agenda for measuring and improving health care quality for children enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. CHIPRA called for the development of a Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures (which states voluntarily report) and launched a new Pediatric Quality Measures Program that, among…
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State and National Experts Convene to Discuss Early Childhood Developmental Screenings and Referrals
By Carrie Fitzgerald, Vice President of Children’s Health Programs at First Focus, Here’s something almost everyone who reads this blog already knows: the first three years of a child’s life are a critical time for brain development. Our brains are most adaptable during early childhood, and early intervention and treatment for conditions, disorders, and developmental…
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Proposed Legislation Will Fix Medicaid Glitch for Former Foster Youth Who Move
I’ve written before about an unintended flaw in the Affordable Care Act that relates to Medicaid eligibility for former foster youth. The simple use of the words “the” versus “a” state has led to an interpretation of the law that allows states to deny coverage to young adults who were in foster care in a…
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Even Though it is Turning 50, Medicaid is Still a Children’s Program
Today marks 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicaid program into law in 1965. The program has continued to evolve since then – playing a key role in our health care system serving low-income families, people with disabilities, HIV, and those receiving long term care. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility for…
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Medicaid Provides an Excellent Long-Term Return on Investment
By Alisa Chester and Joan Alker As our nation marks Medicaid’s 50th anniversary of service to the nation this week, it’s a good time to reflect on how this federal-state partnership program is making a difference – especially for children and families. As has been widely discussed, Medicaid has been instrumental to our nation’s historic…
