Blog
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What Can Policy Makers Learn from Experiences of Arizona Children Who Lost CHIP Coverage?
Fourteen thousand children in Arizona lost their health insurance at the end of January 2014 when the state ended its KidsCare program for low-income children, becoming the only state in the country without an active Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Today we released two new reports on how those cuts to children’s coverage impacted Arizona…
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CCF to MACPAC: CHIP Should Continue While Policymakers Work to Improve Marketplace Coverage for Kids
By Sean Miskell As the expiration of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) approaches and policy makers consider its role in the new health coverage landscape, it’s a good time to take stock of CHIP coverage and whether or not comparable and affordable coverage is available to families through the new health insurance…
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Governor Haslam Announces Details of His Tennessee Medicaid Expansion Waiver
Yesterday, Governor Haslam put some meat on the bones of the “Insure Tennessee” plan when he released more details about his version of Medicaid expansion. The Governor also called for a special session of the legislature to consider his plan to commence on Feb. 2nd. One highly publicized feature of the Tennessee plan is that…
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Are People in Immigrant Families Gaining Coverage Under Health Reform?
I tried to answer this question for a presentation at an immigration conference right before the holidays. Unfortunately, although we are in our second open enrollment season under health reform, we can’t fully answer this question yet. What we do know indicates that we are making some progress but have a lot more work to…
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Medicaid to 26: Reaching out to Former Foster Youth
By Kari Siddiqui, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy One of the most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turned 26. However, less talked about are the strides the ACA made for youth who were in foster care. Recognizing that young…
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49 National Groups to MACPAC: Keep CHIP While Improving Exchanges for Kids
Compared to what?! – This line is a favorite of my four-year-old from the popular Marcel the Shell with Shoes On web series. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing as I have many times, Marcel makes funny observations about his role and size in the world. The full quote (which you can see…
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Tennessee Proposal Highlights Importance of Medicaid Expansion for Residents and Providers
By Sean Miskell This week, Governor Haslam announced his plan to expand Medicaid via a two-year pilot program called Insure Tennessee. Like other formerly recalcitrant states that are now embracing expansion, Tennessee is pursuing a state-specific approach that differs from ‘traditional’ Medicaid expansion. One element of this plan – in which the Tennessee Hospital Association…
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Reports this Week: Multiple States Mulling Medicaid Expansion
There has been some interesting movement this past week around the Medicaid expansion issue, especially in Tennessee. One emerging theme continues – development of state-created alternative plans to use the Medicaid dollars while still extending health coverage to newly eligible low-income adults. Here are some of the more interesting stories: Obviously Tennessee leads here with…
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CDC Survey Shows Uninsured Rate Continues to Drop for Adults, Remains Steady for Kids
Yesterday we heard more good news about declining uninsured rates for adults – especially in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act – while uninsured rates for children continue to hold steady. These were some of the findings included in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) report for the first six months of…
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How Do Minimum Essential Coverage and Minimum Value Tests Impact Consumers with Employer-Offered Coverage
By JoAnn Volk and Sandy Ahn, Center on Health Insurance Reforms Open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplaces overlaps this year with many employer plan open enrollment periods, which has prompted some employees to ask questions about how their offer of employer coverage may affect their eligibility for premium tax credits for a marketplace plan.…
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Communicating the Connection between Parent’s and Children’s Health in States Expanding Medicaid
By Liane Wong, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation It should be common sense to say that policies and programs which improve the health and well-being of parents will also help their children, right? I recently joined the Aspen Institute’s ThinkXChange to discuss priorities and emerging opportunities across the country to develop two generation approaches—where…
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How Much is the Federal Government Spending on Children?
December’s issue of Health Affairs is dedicated to the subject of children’s health, particularly how children fare in the national health care system. The Scheduled Squeeze On Children’s Programs: Tracking The Implications of Projected Federal Spending Patterns, written by Urban Institute scholars C. Eugene Steuerle and Julia B. Isaacs, reviews how the federal government funds…
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A Step Forward For Lawfully Present Immigrants Living in Poverty
It’s no secret that during last year’s open enrollment many applicants for health coverage in immigrant families faced major barriers to enrolling in marketplace coverage. One big problem was that lawfully present immigrants with income under 100 percent FPL—who are ineligible for Medicaid based on their immigration status but are eligible for premium tax credits…
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Governors Overwhelmingly Support CHIP, Offer Recommendations
While many of us were eagerly watching the House CHIP hearing last week, the House Energy and Commerce and Senate Finance Committees released the full set of governors responses to the summer Congressional inquiry on CHIP. Naturally, we were eager to see what they had to say! We read through the 39 letters intently to…
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State-Based Marketplaces Offer More Health Plan Options for 2015
By Sean Miskell The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to make quality health coverage more affordable and accessible, in part by promoting competition among insurers in the law’s new marketplaces. By providing consumers with a portal through which to compare plans and obtain financial assistance with the cost of coverage, policymakers hoped the marketplaces…
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House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on the Future of CHIP, Releases Governors’ Letters
It has been a while since I witnessed a Congressional hearing on health care that was not contentious. Courtesy and bipartisanship were on full display at the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee this week on the future of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). That’s not to say that renewing CHIP funding will be…
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Why Does Florida Still Have one of Highest Uninsured Rates for Kids? What Can be Done to Help?
Earlier this week I released a brief and held a webinar with the Florida Philanthropic Network on Florida’s uninsured children. The brief provides an overview of the demographics of Florida’s kids and outlines some policy decisions that will impact Florida’s high uninsured rate in the future. It will come as no surprise to regular Say Ahhh!…
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Wyoming’s SHARE Plan: Politics and Policy Driving Creation of Governor’s Proposal to use Federal Medicaid Expansion Funding
Wyoming Governor Matt Mead is no fan of the Affordable Care Act. He led the state into joining the multistate suit against the ACA and isn’t shy about sharing his opinion. Despite this, practical considerations around cost and the continuing number of uninsured Wyomingites have led him to carefully construct a state-specific proposal for using…
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Utah, Wyoming and Idaho: State Plans for using federal Medicaid Expansion Dollars
Here are copies of the proposed plans Governor Mead in Wyoming and Governor Herbert in Utah recently released for using the federal Medicaid expansion dollars under the Affordable Care Act: Healthy Utah Plan Wyoming SHARE Plan And here’s a copy of the proposed plan presented by the Governor’s own workgroup on Medicaid to Idaho Governor…
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Wyoming Medicaid Waiver Could Pass Muster with CMS
Just as everyone was preparing Thanksgiving dinner, the state of Wyoming released its version of Medicaid expansion – called the Strategy for Health, Access, Responsibility, and Employment (SHARE) program. As is in vogue with this round of Medicaid expansion proposals, this one will require a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver, but unlike some recent submissions, Wyoming’s…