Media Coverage

Governing By: Mattie Quinn Just over one hundred days into Donald Trump’s presidency, he has left health officials with more uncertainty than most have faced in years. A promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, one of the biggest overhauls of modern health care, hangs in the balance. Waivers to transform Medicaid, the…

The Washington Post By: Paige Winfield Cunningham President Trump is expected to today propose a hefty 20 percent cut in his budget to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, my colleagues report. Democrats will protest, but they too toyed with the idea of eliminating CHIP seven years ago when passing the Affordable Care Act. … “If you cap Medicaid, it turns into…

Time By: Alicia Adamczyk The Trump Administration’s 2018 budget request, unveiled Tuesday, includes deep cuts to Medicaid, the insurance program for low income, elderly, and disabled Americans. Medicaid covers nearly one in four Americans and accounts for $1 out of every $6 spent on healthcare in the country. … The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covered more than 8.4…

The Washington Post By: Juliet Eilprin Lower-income children would have their federal health benefits cut sharply under President Trump’s proposed budget, which analysts say could reverse gains that have pushed uninsured rates for this vulnerable population below 5 percent. … Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, said Tuesday that Trump’s…

The Charlotte Observer By: Tony Pugh President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal calls for stripping $610 billion from the Medicaid program over the next 10 years – providing an executive-branch rubber stamp of key provisions in Obamacare repeal legislation being championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives. … Since half of Medicaid beneficiaries are children,…

Kaiser Health News Back in January, Republicans boasted they would deliver a “repeal and replace” bill for the Affordable Care Act to President Donald Trump’s desk by the end of the month. In the interim, that bravado has faded as their efforts stalled and they found out how complicated undoing a major law can be.…

Ellwood City Ledger By: J.D. Prose Proposed Medicaid cuts of $880 billion included in U.S. House Republican’s health-care reform plan would devastate funding for students, especially those with disabilities, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said Thursday. “It rips away health care; it undermines health care,” Casey, D-Scranton, said of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which…

The Daily Item By: Joe Sylvester U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Thursday lashed out at Republicans for their health care bill, which he said would slash $880 billion from Medicaid, including funds that help students with disabilities. … Schneider, a professor at Georgetown Center for Children & Families who has worked on Medicaid as a policy expert…

Becker’s Hospital Review By: Kelly Gooch The version of the GOP’s ACA replacement plan approved by the House of Representatives could jeopardize funding for children’s health coverage, reports USA Today. … With those proposed cuts, “there’s absolutely no way kids can stay out of harm’s way,” Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center on…

The Los Angeles Times By: Michael Hiltzik We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: In the ridiculous mess that is the American healthcare system, there’s one indisputable success — children’s health coverage. Over the last two decades, the uninsured rate for children under 18 has fallen from 14% to less than 5%. … Today…

USA Today By: Jayne O’Donnell and Ken Alltucker Samantha Bailey spends her days in a Phoenix hospital room with her 19-month-old son, Henry, waiting for a heart transplant and fretting about his health care once he gets it. … With cuts anywhere near that size, “there’s absolutely no way kids can stay out of harm’s way,” says…

Capital & Main By: Rex Weiner If put under a large enough stethoscope and asked to cough, America would appear to require an ambulance. Amidst a dark and gathering cloud of negative indicators, death rates for cardiovascular disease and drug overdoses are up nationally, according to the United Health Foundation, and adult obesity increased 157…

AAP News By: Devin Miller During the conference, hosted by COFGA and the AAP Committee on State Government Affairs, participants attended interactive skills-building workshops, heard from policy experts and leaders about child health priorities, and prepared for the advocacy task at-hand: urging Congress to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and keep…

Bustle By: Jon Hecht One of the most prominent aspects of the health care bill is the $880 billion cut to Medicaid, along with changes to the program which would force states to cap their spending at certain levels. It stands in contrast to the current system, in which Medicaid covers all health care needs of…

Vox By: Matthew Yglesias The frenetic final days of the debate over the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives focused largely on patients with preexisting medical conditions — but not on sweeping cuts to Medicaid, which have the potential take health care from tens of millions of Americans. … However, there is…

Becker’s ASC Review By: Eric Oliver More than half of Indiana’s 590,315 low-income beneficiaries enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program failed to make monthly payments required to receive “top tier” service, the Indy Star reports. … Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families Executive Director Joan Alker said to the Star, “The evaluation makes clear…

Asheville Citizen-Times By: Mark Barrett Federal spending to help lower- and middle-income wage earners buy health insurance would drop dramatically in North Carolina under the health care law winning approval in the U.S. House last week. … But the fact that the risk pool’s books balanced doesn’t mean that those who were covered could balance…

Indianapolis Star By: Maureen Groppe WASHINGTON – More than half the low-income people who qualified for Indiana’s alternative Medicaid program failed to make a monthly payment required for the top tier of service — a key feature of the program Vice President Mike Pence insisted on as a condition to expanding the health care program…

Modern Healthcare By: Harris Meyer Passage of the House Republicans’ healthcare overhaul bill may have created political and policy complications for the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, whose funding will end in September unless Congress reauthorizes it. … “Rolling CHIP into the broader debate would be very unfortunate,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the…

Arizona Republic By: Ken Alltucker House Republicans this week pushed through legislation that seeks to dramatically overhaul the government-funded insurance program that covers nearly 2 million low-income and disabled Arizonans. … In Arizona’s initial waiver application, the state said that its proposals would have a “positive effect on budget neutrality” without providing data to back up that claim, according…