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Research & Reports

  • CHIPRA 2009 Overview and Summary

    CCFadmin

    On February 4, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA). The new law (Public Law No. 111-3) is designed to provide coverage to significant numbers of uninsured children and to improve the quality of care that all of America’s children receive. Most notably, it strengthens and extends…

  • Program Design Snapshot: 12-Month Continuous Eligibility

    CCFadmin

    Continuous eligibility is a state option that allows children, ages 0-18, to maintain Medicaid or SCHIP coverage for up to one full year, even if families experience a change in income or family status. By implementing this program element, a state ensures that for 365 days a year children get, and keep, the coverage for…

  • Increasing the Medicaid Program’s Efficiency and Effectiveness: The Role of Medicaid Program Management

    CCFadmin

    Effective and efficient management of the Medicaid program is essential. Managing the Medicaid program well ensures that beneficiaries get the health and long-term care services they need, providers offer high quality care in a system that operates efficiently, and public resources are spent effectively. This paper proposes four discrete strategies to improve and streamline management…

  • Family Coverage: Covering Parents Along with Their Children

    CCFadmin

    While much progress has been made over the last decade in lowering the rate of uninsured children, the uninsured rate for parents remains significantly higher than for their children—and it has been growing rather than declining. States, however, can take steps similar to those that have been taken on behalf of children to expand coverage…

  • Cost Sharing for Children and Families in Medicaid and CHIP

    CCFadmin

    Cost sharing is an established part of health insurance in this country, but it is imperative to use it judiciously in Medicaid and CHIP to avoid deterring low-income children and families from using needed health care services. While some families served by these programs are able to pay premiums or make copayments, others, especially those…

  • Coordinating Medicaid and SCHIP

    CCFadmin

    SCHIP, launched in 1997, allowed states to expand coverage through their existing Medicaid program, to establish a separate state program, or to adopt a combination approach. The option to establish a separate program has been important to many states, but it also can make it more difficult for families to secure and retain coverage for…

  • Maintaining Coverage for Children: Retention Strategies

    CCFadmin

    Efforts to decrease the number of uninsured children in America often focus on increasing enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP. With over six million uninsured children eligible for these programs, outreach and enrollment activities can indeed be one of the most effective strategies for covering uninsured children. This issue brief provides specific strategies that can be…

  • Reaching Eligible but Uninsured Children in Medicaid and SCHIP

    CCFadmin

    One of the most important steps a state can take to provide health coverage to its children is to reach uninsured children who already qualify for Medicaid or the SCHIP. Some six million children who are uninsured qualify for the two programs, representing close to seven in ten of all uninsured children. The vast majority…

  • Program Design Snapshot: State Buy-in Programs for Children

    CCFadmin

    Child buy-in programs allow families with incomes in excess of a state’s Medicaid/SCHIP eligibility levels to purchase insurance for their children through the public plan. This short brief reviews state child buy-in programs, and provides an overview of issues that states must consider when implementing a program. It shows that while enrollment in the programs…

  • Building on a Solid Foundation: Medicaid’s Role in a Reformed Health Care System

    CCFadmin

    By Martha Heberlein Health care reform is once again a front and center issue – at the White House and in the halls of Congress, in state capitols and corporate boardrooms, and around kitchen tables across America. Covering the uninsured, reigning in health care costs, and obtaining better quality and value for our health care…

  • Weathering the Storm: States Move Forward on Child and Family Health Coverage Despite Tough Economic Climate

    CCFadmin

    This report provides a first look at state activity after the passage of CHIPRA and the availability of increased Medicaid funding in the economic stimulus package. It finds that despite unprecedented fiscal challenges, all but a few states held steady on children’s health coverage, and twenty-three states took steps to move forward. This progress on…

  • The Louisiana Experience: Successful Steps to Improve Retention in Medicaid and SCHIP

    Tricia Brooks

    Over the past decade, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals has taken a series of progressive and innovative steps to reduce the number of children who lose Medicaid or CHIP (known as LaCHIP) coverage at renewal for reasons not related to eligibility. In 2008, less than 1% of children enrolled in Louisiana’s LaCHIP program…

  • Washington State: Coverage to All Children

    CCFadmin

    Beginning in February 2009, Washington began enrolling children with family incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) in its new Apple Health for Kids program.  The implementation of this expansion is only the most recent phase of a comprehensive effort to cover all children that began over 2 years ago when…

  • Medicaid and Health Reform: How Will They Work Together?

    CCFadmin

    By Jocelyn Guyer Child Welfare League of America — Presentation Document February 2009

  • CHIP Reauthorization: New Opportunities for Moving Forward

    CCFadmin

    By Cindy Mann Commonwealth Fund Leadership Forum on Early Childhood Development — Presentation Document February 2009

  • Postcards from CCF – Washington

    CCFadmin

    CHIPRA and the rescission of the CMS August 17 Directiveare already making a difference in the lives of children and families in Washington.Meet Sarah McIntyre, an 8-year-old girl living in Yakima, Washington who loves school, music and dance. On the surface, she’s just another happy-go-lucky 2nd grader. Look a little deeper and you’ll find an…

  • The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009

    CCFadmin

    On February 4, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA). The new law (Public Law No. 111-3) is designed to provide coverage to significant numbers of uninsured children and to improve the quality of care that all of America’s children receive. Most notably, it strengthens and…

  • The Impact of Health Reform on Public Programs

    CCFadmin

    Author: Cindy Mann National Health Policy Forum – Presentation Document February 2009

  • State Child Buy-In Programs: A Snapshot

    CCFadmin

    Author: Dawn Horner Families USA — Presentation Document January 2009

  • Moving Forward in Uncertain Times

    CCFadmin

    Author: Cindy Mann American Hospital Association — Presentation Document January 2009