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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
