Media Coverage
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2019 saw the biggest rise in uninsured children in a decade — and that was before the recession
CNN By: Tami Luhby The increase in the number of uninsured children last year was the largest in more than a decade, even before the pandemic and the recession it caused. The uninsured rate climbed to 5.7% in 2019, the third year of increases after hitting a historic low of 4.7% in 2016. The number…
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Children’s Health Insurance Coverage: Progress, Problems, And Priorities For 2021 And Beyond
Health Affairs By: Joan C. Alker, Genevieve M. Kenney, and Sara Rosenbaum Expansion of Medicaid and establishment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) represent a significant success story in the national effort to guarantee health insurance for children. That success is reflected in the high rates of coverage and health care access achieved for children,…
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What would happen if ACA is overturned?
Charleston-Gazette Mail By: Rick Wilson It’s too soon to say, but the people who want to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a group that includes West Virginia’s attorney general, are closer than before to getting what they want, even in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed over 200,000 Americans. Opponents of the…
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4 million more Americans turn to Medicaid as coronavirus roils economy
CNN By: Tami Luhby Just over 4 million more Americans turned to Medicaid last spring as the coronavirus pandemic upended the nation’s economy, new federal data released Wednesday shows. The 5.7% jump between February and June came as millions of people lost their jobs — and, for many, their health insurance too — amid the…
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MACPAC Worries States Will Quickly Trim Medicaid Rolls Post-Pandemic
Inside Health Policy By: Dorothy Mills-Gregg CMS needs to release guidance before the end of the public health emergency on how states should restart the Medicaid redetermination process, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Payment and Access Commission members said, as they fear states might be too anxious to remove beneficiaries and overwhelm the system….…
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MACPAC Explores Why Few Providers Sought Medicaid, CHIP Relief
Inside Health Policy By: Michelle Stein Congress’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program advisers want to look deeper into how Medicaid provider relief efforts are going, after finding that less than 15% of potentially eligible providers applied for Medicaid relief funding by the end of August. As of mid-September, only $2.2 billion of the $15…
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Experts seek answers on why few Medicaid providers sought COVID-19 relief
Healthcare Dive By: Samantha Liss Commissioners that help guide federal Medicaid policy raised concerns Thursday over why few Medicaid providers applied for federal relief funds amid the pandemic. Of the $175 billion allocated by Congress to help providers, about $15 billion has been allocated for Medicaid providers specifically. However, despite the billions in relief available,…
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Not All Seniors To Get $200 Medicare Drug Cards Before Election
Inside Health Policy By: John Wilkerson Only some seniors will receive the president’s $200 Medicare Part D cards for copays before the election because it will take months to issue the cards, White House officials said Friday (Sept. 25). Officials declined to say how the cards would be paid for, but on a call with…
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State-imported drugs would not affect 340B drug prices
Modern Healthcare By: Rachel Cohrs Drugs imported by states under the Trump administration’s importation plan will not be subject to Medicaid rebates, which means they would not set new 340B prices according to CMS guidance released Friday… The savings from drug importation would hinge on how low states could get drug prices and how widely…
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Health officials scramble to explain details of Trump’s $200 drug discount card
The Washington Post By: Lenny Bernstein Health officials scrambled Friday to explain President Trump’s plan to send $200 prescription drug discount cards to 33 million Medicare recipients as experts cast doubt on the proposal and Democrats accused the president of blatant political chicanery less than six weeks before the election… With little information to go…
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Children’s Health and Well Being During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Kaiser Family Foundation By: Rachel Garfield and Priya Chidambaram The debate over school openings has highlighted the implications of the coronavirus pandemic for children and their families. While experts continue to gather data on children’s risk for contracting and transmitting coronavirus, current research suggests that though children are more likely to be asymptomatic and less…
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Covid Causes Vast Drop in Critical Early Child Care for Poor
Bloomberg Quint The Covid-19 pandemic is harming the long-term health of low-income children, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Wednesday. Vaccination rates, primary preventive care, and screenings among children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have plummeted during the pandemic, the CMS said. Between March and May, vaccinations for children under…
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Number of uninsured Arizonans grew by 60K last year, report says. And then the pandemic hit.
AZ Central By: Stephanie Innes The number of Arizonans without health insurance grew by nearly 64,000 people in 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic that may swell those ranks, new Census data says… In her blog post, Joan Alker of Georgetown University wrote that Latino children saw the largest jump in their already high uninsured…
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Florida health care providers get reprieve from devastating’ proposal
Biz Journal Verma unveiled the proposed rule in November, saying at the time there had been a proliferation of supplemental payment arrangements “where shady recycling schemes drive up taxpayer costs and pervert the system.” The rule drew widespread criticism from disparate interests. Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown…
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Trump administration backing off Medicaid rule that states warned would lead to cuts
The Hill By: Jessie Hellmann The Trump administration will not move forward with a proposed Medicaid rule that states, hospitals, insurers, patient advocates and members of both political parties warned could lead to massive cuts to the federal health care program for the poor… If finalized, the rule “would have forced states to face larger…
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California Rx: State May Dive Into Generic Drug Market
Kaiser Health News By: Angela Hart and Samantha Young California is poised to become the first state to develop its own line of generic drugs, targeting soaring drug prices and stepping into a fiercely competitive drug market dominated by deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies… “Other legislative efforts in Congress and in other states have focused on government…
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Recession And Medicaid Budgets: What Are The Options?
Health Affairs By: Allan Baumgarten and Katherine Hempstead The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic dislocation are having a major impact on state budgets, particularly their Medicaid programs. Medicaid is inherently counter-cyclical, meaning that enrollment and spending increase in response to economic downturns. Medicaid enrollment will grow as workers lose jobs and coverage. Forecasts range from…
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Medicaid Work Requirements in Arkansas Didn’t Boost Employment
The Fiscal Times By: Michael Rainey A new study of work requirements for Medicaid recipients in Arkansas finds that they did nothing to increase employment but did impose substantial hardships on those who lost coverage as a result of the requirements… Joan Alker, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families who has…
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As Families Grapple with Schooling Stresses, Congress Must Act
Community Catalyst By: Eva Marie Stahl The Senate is on vacation until next week, having left Washington last month without delivering on the needed support that states and localities urgently require to support families and working people across the country who are living on the edge of financial and health disaster… In a recent survey,…
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Telehealth and Medicaid Expansion during COVID
RAC Monitor By: Knicole C. Emanuel Esq This article will explore Medicaid expansion during COVID-19. We all know that COVID has uprooted our lives. Telehealth is the new post-COVID norm, whereas it was in infancy pre-COVID. Perhaps the pandemic has spurred on Medicaid expansion as well. Everyone has more patients, and more ways to serve…