Research & Reports
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A Win for Colorado Kids – Decrease in the Number of Uninsured
By Brittney Petersen, Colorado Community Health Network Amidst what is a fairly bleak time for states trying to expand coverage for kids, there is encouraging news that more kids are getting health coverage in Colorado. Two recent reports demonstrate a significant decline in the number of uninsured kids in Colorado between 2008 and 2009. The…
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Senate Majority Leader Shares his Views on Medicaid & CHIP
By Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader Having grown up in a family that could not afford health care, I know how difficult it can be to go to a doctor when you need one. That’s one of the reasons I worked on health insurance reform. No person in the United States should go without care…
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Public Support for Medicaid Similar to Medicare and Social Security
Opposition to cutting Medicare has dominated the news and public debate in recent weeks but a new poll by Kaiser shows Americans are equally resistant to changes in Medicaid. The Kaiser monthly tracking poll found that 60% of Americans like Medicaid the way it is. Public support for Medicaid was similar to that of Medicare and Social…
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The Impact of Premiums on Families in BadgerCare Plus
As Wisconsin considers increasing premiums in its Medicaid program,BadgerCare Plus, CCF researchers examined the impact of premiums on families in Wisconsin’s Medicaid program. In this policy brief, they look at the effect on participation in the program if premiums were increased or added for families between 100 and 200% of the FPL in BadgerCare Plus…
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Vermont’s Green Mountain Care Puts State on Path to Universal Coverage
By Donna Sutton Fay, Vermont Campaign for Health Care Security Education Fund Vermont has been successful in incrementally expanding its public health insurance programs for the past twenty-five years. Subsidized coverage is available to children and uninsured adults with incomes up to 300% of the FPL. We have one of the lowest rates of uninsured…
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You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure
By Joe Touschner We’ve all heard the observation that putting a Medicaid or CHIP card in a parent’s hand doesn’t necessarily mean that a child will get all the health care he or she needs–many of us have probably said it ourselves. For coverage to translate to care, kids and parents need access to the…
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Keeping Up with the California Health Benefit Exchange Board: Starting Off On the Fast Track
By Nicette Short of Children Now and Kathleen Hamilton of The Children’s Partnership California’s Health Benefit Exchange Board, created under the Affordable Care Act, held its inaugural meeting on April 20, 2011 in Sacramento, California. Even with one of the five Board seats vacant (the California Senate has not yet selected its appointee), the California…
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Oklahoma Makes U-Turn and Rejects Early Innovator Grant
By David Blatt, Director of Oklahoma Policy Institute In the new national health care law (the Affordable Care Act, or ACA), exchanges are state-level competitive marketplaces for individuals and small businesses to purchase insurance. After winning a $54 million Early Innovator grant earlier this year, Oklahoma was poised to become a national leader with a…
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Presumptive Eligibility: Providing Access to Health Care Without Delay and Connecting Children to Coverage
Presumptive eligibility is a state policy option that gives states the flexibility to train health care providers, schools and other community-based organizations and programs to screen eligibility and temporarily enroll eligible persons in Medicaid and CHIP. Currently 31 states use presumptive eligibility for pregnant women and 16 states enroll children presumptively. The following issue brief…
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Alphabet Soup: ACOs under ACA
By Joe Touschner We’ve long been familiar with CHIP and FMAP, while health reform has given us PPACA (ACA for short) and CLASS. You’ve probably also heard a lot recently about ACOs–Accountable Care Organizations which may be the concept of the year for many of our friends in the physician, hospital, and insurance communities. (Atul…
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Colorado Takes Step to Eliminate ‘Stair Step’
By Gretchen Hammer, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved Some people say stair stepping is good for your health. Well, that may be true when you are exercising, but it is not true for families with children enrolled in public health insurance programs in Colorado. Currently, a Colorado family can have kids on two different…
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HHS Engages Communities to Address Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
HHS’s National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities (a project of the Office of Minority Health) recently hosted a conference call announcing a new new initiative focused on reducing health disparities in the U.S. The National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity was developed after engaging communities across the country around the priorities and…
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What If Ryan’s Medicaid Block Grant Were Already in Effect?
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities The Congressional Budget Office has found that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s proposal to block-grant Medicaid would significantly shift costs to states, beneficiaries, and health care providers. To help illustrate how states would likely fare under the proposal over time, the Center on Budget and…
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Medicaid Block Grant Proposal Would Impact Pregnant Women
By Amanda Jezek, March of Dimes House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s recently released 2012 budget resolution was passed by the committee and is expected to be considered by the full House of Representatives this week. It includes a proposal to convert the federal share of the Medicaid program into capped block grants to states.…
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Using CHIPRA Bonus Payments in Advocacy
Jon Gould, Children’s Alliance While celebrating the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act last month, I couldn’t help but think how vital CHIPRA’s passage was a year before the ACA – in February 2009. With President Obama’s signature on the five-year children’s health reauthorization law came a powerful new tool in our advocacy toolbox: annual…
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Understanding Florida Medicaid Today And the Impact of Federal Health Care Reform
Sound information on Florida’s Medicaid program is especially timely because of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which will move more low-income people into Medicaid by expanding eligibility levels in 2014. The highly politicized nature of the debate about Medicaid and health reform has lead to some exaggerated state estimates of Florida’s cost…
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As Legislators Wrestle to Define Next Generation of Florida Medicaid, Benefits of Reform Effort Are Far From Clear
Medicaid is a critical part of Florida’s health care system. It covers about 27% of the state’s children, pays for 51% of all deliveries and nearly 66% of nursing home days. In 2006, a five-year pilot program replaced traditional Medicaid with an unusual managed-care model and other features that required a Section 1115 waiver from…
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Cuts to Medicaid will Ultimately Hurt Business
By Jim Roche, President, Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire For years, business owners and managers have cited the rising cost of health care and health insurance as their top challenge, after the health of the economy. And for years, the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire has tried to do its part…
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NAIC Delays Vote on Removing Broker’s Commissions from MLR
There’s been lots of drama at this year’s first meeting of the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) in Austin, TX – way more than any of us consumer representatives to the NAIC expected. The good news, as you may have heard by now, is that the NAIC decided to delay a vote to endorse…
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Senator Stands Up for Medicaid
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care. Amid the larger scuffle on budget-cutting this year, some in Congress are looking for convenient excuses to roll back programs designed to give low-income Americans a hand up in life. Proposed cuts from the House are a direct attack on working Americans –…