Data
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First Peek at Health Coverage Rates Post-ACA: Uninsurance Drop in 2014
Hot off the press! Today we get our first look at annual insurance coverage data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for 2014 and the results are in: fewer people were uninsured in 2014—the first year of full ACA implementation— than 2013. Children and adults in Medicaid expansion states had lower rates of uninsurance.…
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Medicaid/CHIP Participation Rate Was 88.3 percent Among Children in 2013
By Genevieve M. Kenney and Nathaniel Anderson, Urban Institute We keep a close eye on fluctuations in the participation rate in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) because it is so critical to efforts to bring down the uninsured rate for children. Our latest data found that children’s participation in Medicaid/CHIP was 88.3…
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A First Look at Uninsured Rate for Children Since Major Affordable Care Act Provisions Took Effect
Georgetown University CCF researchers teamed up with researchers at the Urban Institute to take a first look at how the Affordable Care Act is impacting the uninsured rate for children. The high level data indicate that, so far, there has been no detectable change nationally, although children’s uninsured rates remained at historically low levels. The…
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CCF Partners with Urban Institute and Packard on New Health Reform Survey
By Martha Heberlein Today, Health Affairs released a paper detailing a new (and in our opinion a very exciting!) survey – the Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) – designed by the Urban Institute. This internet-based survey is intended to provide rapid-cycle feedback on changes under the ACA. The goal is to replicate key outcome measures…
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Premiums for Employer-Sponsored Coverage Increase Modestly, but Lower-Income Workers Pay More
By Martha Heberlein The annual Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust survey of employer health benefits was released today and found that the average premium for family based coverage rose to $15,745, or just 4% compared to 2011 (premiums for individual plans rose 3%). Although moderate, this growth has far out-paced workers wages, which…
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Study Finds Medicaid Beneficiaries’ Use of Hospital Emergency Departments Comparable to Privately Insured Patients
By Tara Mancini Medicaid seems to be a lightening rod for inaccurate assumptions such as it’s too expensive for states (it’s a good deal for states), overall cost (more cost-effective than private insurance) and beneficiaries using hospital Emergency Departments for routine care. Until recently, there had not been much research to refute the perception of…
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How Much Do Kids Count? This Year We Get a Closer Look
By Tara Mancini Members of Congress, as well as state and local politicians seem to agree that we must invest in kids. They often contend that it is our duty to build the next generation. Yet, what exactly we mean by “investing in our future” is a sore point of contention – at best, and…
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Holding Insurers Accountable: Should We Add an MLR to Medicaid?
A hot issue in many states today is whether or not to move more Medicaid beneficiaries, and often very vulnerable beneficiaries, into managed care. Indeed, many managed care companies are interested in getting or keeping a foot in the Medicaid market given the expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014. And many, though not all, states are…
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New MACPAC Report Released
By Martha Heberlein What an exciting week for data lovers! First the CBO Baseline was released and yesterday MACPAC put out their March report. As usual, it’s chock full of goodies! This edition of the report has 4 chapters (not to mention the always appreciated MACStats!). The first chapter focuses on the more than 9…
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What’s the Score? CBO’s Updated Baseline Released
By Martha Heberlein I don’t know what you did yesterday, but I spent the day eagerly awaiting CBO’s annual March baseline. As the “official scorekeepers” in Washington, their projections of spending and enrollment in Medicaid, CHIP, and coverage under the exchanges carry a lot of weight. Besides, who wouldn’t love the neat little tables they produce…
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Keeping Care Affordable: CMS Stands up for California Kids
By Michael Odeh, Children Now Earlier this month the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made an important ruling that truly embraces the “AFFORDABLE” in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Health care services and economics research over the past four decades has clearly shown that unaffordable cost-sharing in health care can be a…
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Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs Provides Important Data
By Tara Mancini Say Ahhh! readers should know about an important new data source on Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN); the 2009/10 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. This is the third survey in this series, which is funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) and conducted by…
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Hard Work Pays Off for “Waiver Watchers”
By Wesley Prater A number of states looking to save money in their Medicaid programs are asking the federal government for Section 1115 Research and Demonstration waivers — in some cases asking for federal protection that preserve their coverage for children and families to be loosened. However, recently three states – New Jersey, Texas, and…
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Utah’s Waiver Proposal–Join Us in Speaking Up for Kids
By Joe Touschner Like many states, Utah has been working to redesign its Medicaid program in an effort to contain costs–the state submitted a Section 1115 demonstration waiver application to CMS earlier this month. As my colleague Joan Alker has blogged about in the past, waivers are often adopted with little public transparency even though…
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A Closer Look at Florida’s Medicaid Program
The Florida legislature is in the midst of a hot and heavy debate about the future of the state’s Medicaid program. One of the key questions being discussed is whether or not to expand the state’s controversial Section 1115 Medicaid waiver across the state and across all populations. The waiver is coming to the end…
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As ACA Approaches 1st Birthday, Legislative Activity Heats Up
Both the Senate Finance Committee and Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee held hearings this week on aspects of the Affordable Care Act. Here’s a quick summary of those hearings and other developments in Congress. In the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Secretary Sebelius did a good job of responding to criticism of the ACA by…
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Transparency in the Section 1115 Waiver Process: Proposed Reg is Released!
This is sad — I was sitting outside my daughter’s school waiting for a friend this morning avidly reading Friday’s Federal Register. For those of you who missed it, the proposed regulation implementing new transparency and public notice procedures for Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP waivers was released on September 17th, 2010. I think my…
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Poll: Affordability and Health Care Coverage
This survey shows that families are still reeling from the recession, feeling pessimistic about the future, and struggling to afford health care. Health care costs are squeezing families financially, forcing them to make hard choices. For this reason, their goal for health care reform is overwhelmingly to make health care more affordable and to lower…
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Data Reporting to Assess Enrollment and Retention in Medicaid and SCHIP
Enrollment and retention data are essential tools to ensuring that all uninsured children eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP are enrolled. Reliable data reported on a routine basis help to pinpoint both administrative inefficiencies and opportunities to assure coverage of eligible children. This paper describes high level data points that help to identify bottlenecks and barriers,…