Research & Reports
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A Disappointing Rollback of Consumer Protections on Appeals
Imagine you’re a parent and your child has been diagnosed with cancer and is going through painful, debilitating treatment. You can imagine the sleepless nights, the worry, the exhaustion, the fear. Now imagine that your insurance company denies some of the claims for your child’s treatment – treatment that the doctors assure you are essential…
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Finance Committee Holds Hearing on Medicaid and Medicare
By Martha Heberlein As negotiations stalled on addressing the debt ceiling and ongoing budget deficits, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing today on the long-term sustainability of Medicare and Medicaid. While much of the focus was on Medicare, Medicaid also played a prominent role, especially around proposals to block grant the program. In response…
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Study Highlights Importance of Improved Medicaid Program
By John Bouman, Sargent Shriver Center on Poverty Law On June 17, Dr. Karin Rhodes and her colleague Joanna Bisgaier of the University of Pennsylvania released a report on access to subspecialty doctors by children covered by Medicaid in Cook County, Illinois. The authors also published an article about the study underlying the report in…
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Gov Hickenlooper’s Veto of Premiums is Win for CO Kids and Families.
By Elisabeth Arenelas, Colorado Center on Law and Policy Thanks to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper for his veto of a bill (Senate Bill 11-213) that would have required monthly premiums for certain children participating in Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), Colorado’s version of the Child Health Insurance Plan. Coverage to this particular group was expanded…
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Republican Governors’ Letter Calls for More Cost-Shifting to States and Local Governments
In a letter to members of Congress outlining their guiding principles for how Medicaid should be changed in to order to address the challenges states are facing in sustaining their programs, Republican governors echoed earlier calls for block grants and more flexibility in how they run their programs along with repeal of the health care…
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Exchange Implementation Work Underway Across the Country
By Joe Touschner Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper — while the national media has reported that states are moving “gingerly” to implement the Affordable Care Act, in fact there’s been a great deal of activity of late, especially around exchanges. No fewer than 16 state legislatures have acted favorably on measures that…
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Keeping on Track: The California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) Continues to Move Along
By Kathleen Hamilton (The Children’s Partnership) Nicette Short (Children Now) on behalf of the 100% Campaign California’s Health Benefit Exchange – now commonly known as HBEX – continued to press on with its work in a fast-paced manner and held two meetings in May, with another to be held tomorrow. The HBEX Board demonstrated its…
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Senators Stand Shoulder-to-Shoulder to Defend Medicaid
Yesterday, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) announced that 41 senators would stand strong and support Medicaid during the ongoing budget deficit and debt ceiling negotiations. This is welcome news given the increased focus on Medicaid lately as the potential source of savings to rein in the deficit and cut a deal on the debt ceiling. All…
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Once Again, a Look at the State Budget Facts
By Martha Heberlein It seems that every time the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) releases a new report on the state of state budgets, another blog or paper is written to correct a misrepresentation of Medicaid’s role. Now, this is certainly not meant to be disparaging against NASBO – their reports are a…
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Capping Federal Spending Imperils Success on Kids Health
By Joe Touschner Some think that a good way to address federal deficits is to establish a cap on federal spending. A cap is needed, they say, to preserve the prosperity of future generations (i.e. today’s children). And a cap sounds like a simple and effective way to address the nation’s deficit. While politicians seem…
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Family-to-Family Organizations Provide Vital Support to Children with Special Health Care Needs
The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced $4.9 million in new funding to support families of children with special health care needs. The funding for the grants was made available through the new health reform law. Grants were awarded to state Family-to-Family Health Centers. For some of these groups, this is new funding…
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Proposed Federal Spending Caps Threaten Successful Efforts on Children’s Health
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have proposed budget plans to address the federal deficit by capping spending, making deep cuts in Medicaid, and/or restructuring the way the nation finances health care for children, seniors, and people with disabilities. These budget plans will devastate the successful steps the nation has taken to provide quality, affordable…
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Obama Administration Opposes Medicaid Enrollees’ Access to Court
By Jane Perkins, Legal Director, National Health Law Program The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear Douglas v. Independent Living Center, a group of cases addressing whether Medicaid-participating providers and enrollees may enforce the Medicaid provider payment provision, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A), in court. Among other things, Section (30)(A) requires states to establish payments…
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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…