Research & Reports
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The Complex Modern Family and Barriers to Children’s Health Coverage
By Gene Lewit, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Children with health insurance coverage start off life on the right foot: they are healthier, miss fewer days of school and their parents and guardians miss less work. Happily, recent efforts to grow and strengthen Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have extended coverage to…
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Medical Homes: Local Focus, Better Health
As policymakers across the country look to balance their budgets, some are turning to Medicaid, recycling the same harmful policies they’ve used year-after-year: eliminating coverage for vulnerable Americans, restricting critical benefits like prescription drug coverage, imposing premiums on those who can’t afford them, and slashing already-low provider reimbursement rates. Community Catalyst and Georgetown University Health…
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Quality Mothers Deserve Quality Care!
By Cynthia Pellegrini, March of Dimes It sounds like a rejected Hallmark card: “Sending you wishes for high quality maternal and child health care, today and every day.” But on Mother’s Day, it’s especially appropriate to talk about healthy women, healthy pregnancies, and healthy babies and children. For many of us in the health policy…
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Sequestration Replacement Cuts Could Unravel the Country’s Success in Covering Children
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, charged with finding offsets to avoid reductions to defense spending, has passed a package of cuts totaling $113 billion. The package includes the elimination of two provisions that have helped to drive down the number of uninsured children to the lowest level on record: 1) repeal of the stability…
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Packard Releases New Report on Impact of Children’s Health Care Advocacy
By Gene Lewit and Liane Wong, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Those of you who are regular Say Ahhh! readers know that more children have health insurance coverage today than at any point in the nation’s history. The steady growth in children’s health coverage did not happen in a vacuum. State and…
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Affordable Care Act: Legislation, Regulation and Guidance
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families contributes an independent voice to the dialogue on how to most effectively make the promise of the Affordable Care Act a reality for children and families.
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CHIP: Legislation, Regulation and Guidance
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families conducts research and provides recommendations on the most promising ways to to protect and improve children’s coverage, the important role CHIP plays in the coverage landscape, and the best ways to sustain and build upon the program’s successes.
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Health Disparities Persist Among Children: Opportunities for the ACA
By Tara Mancini While Minority Health Month draws to a close this week, the just released “National Healthcare Disparities Report,” from the Agency for Health Care Quality illustrates the urgency for dedicating more attention to the issue. Mandated by Congress, the 2011 report is the ninth to be issued. Overall, the report finds that access…
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Supporting Families Who Do the Right Thing by Covering Their Kids
By Barbara Munoz, Voices for Utah Children I have had the great privilege over the last several weeks of interviewing families throughout the state of Utah who have benefited from CHIP or Medicaid. There really is no better way of advocating for children’s health than through the telling of personal stories of real families affected…
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Video Advocacy – It’s Easier than it Looks
By Adam Searing, North Carolina Justice Center Recently my colleague Adam Linker and I had the opportunity from our friends here at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and Atlantic Philanthropies to leave the North Carolina Justice Center and travel to other state capitols around the country. Packing our bags and braving airport…
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Arizona to Open Coverage for More Kids
By Martha Heberlein Health coverage may now be an option for almost 22,000 children currently on the waiting list for CHIP (aka KidsCare) in Arizona under an 1115 waiver amendment approved on April 6th by CMS. The state had been negotiating to establish additional funding streams for uncompensated care payments to certain hospitals and Indian health…
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Essential Health Benefits Resources List
The following is a resource list related essential health benefits.
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CCF Shares Resource List on Essential Health Benefits
By Joe Touschner If you’re a regular Say Ahhh! reader, you’ve seen a number of posts already on the ongoing process to define the essential health benefits. Most of those linked to additional supporting documents, like the Bulletin and FAQ released by HHS and the comparison of potential benchmark plans from Maine’s insurance department. And many more…
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State Budget Woes? Take a Look at Revenues, Not Medicaid
By Martha Heberlein For those regular Say Ahhh! readers, you know we have long harped on accurately depicting the role of Medicaid in state budgets. When new data are released, we update our report or write another blog to try to correct a misrepresentation that Medicaid is solely responsible for state budget woes. Today we are releasing a…
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State Budget Woes: Revenue Declines, Not Medicaid Spending, are to Blame
As states have faced large budget deficits, some politicians have laid the blame at Medicaid’s doorstep, saying that the program’s costs are growing “out of control” and that it is “crowding out” other priorities. While spending in Medicaid has grown as a result of increased enrollment due to the recession, most of this added spending…
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Why Kids’ Advocates Should Pay Attention to SHOP
By Kathleen Hamilton, The Children’s Partnership One of the first and most interesting questions posed by the California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) to its Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) stakeholder work group was “who is the SHOP consumer?” Early discussions clearly revealed a fundamental assumption that the “consumer” in SHOP was the employer. As…
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Taking Stock of Important Milestones as ACA Turns Two
By Kevin Lucia, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Studies When a child turns two, it’s natural to take stock of all the milestones they have achieved such as first steps, first words and first solid foods. Some parents are even organized enough to document all these achievements in a baby book. …
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ACA Protects and Improves Access to Preventive Care for Children
Medicaid and CHIP have helped millions of children access preventive care at no cost to families. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes this commitment further by removing cost and coverage barriers that could deter families from taking full advantage of preventive care services in private insurance plans. Since becoming law, the ACA has helped maintain…
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The New Review and Approval Process Rule for Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP Demonstration Waivers
Section 1115 Medicaid and CHIP demonstration waivers are intended to allow for research and demonstration projects to test new approaches in program design and administration. The Affordable Care Act required the Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations designed to ensure that the public has meaningful opportunities to provide input into the Section…
