Arizona
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Dismantling CHIP in Arizona: How Losing KidsCare Impacts a Child’s Health Care Costs
On January 31, 2014, an estimated 14,000 Arizona children lost their health coverage under KidsCare II, a temporary extension of the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But in fact, Arizona began to dismantle its CHIP program, which provided stable, affordable coverage for uninsured children with family income at or below 200 percent of the…
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Without CHIP, Low-Income Arizona Families Face High Costs for Children’s Health Coverage
Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law, Arizona began the process of dismantling its CHIP program when it froze enrollment in KidsCare in January 2010. Enrollment was temporarily reinstated in May 2012, extending coverage to 47,000 children at the peak of KidsCare II. Thanks to the ACA’s alignment of children’s Medicaid eligibility across all…
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Arizona Risks Falling Even Further Behind in Children’s Coverage by Rolling Back CHIP
Tomorrow, approximately 14,000 children in Arizona will lose their CHIP coverage as the state becomes the first in the nation to substantially roll back most of its CHIP program – Arizona KidsCare II. To understand what’s going on in Arizona, we first need to review the state’s checkered history with the Children’s Health Insurance Program…
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Children’s Coverage on the Eve of the Affordable Care Act
Here’s a good news story on health coverage that the public is largely unaware of. The number of uninsured children continues to decline to historic lows – a remarkable accomplishment given the high childhood poverty rate and tough economic times. Yet a majority of Americans are unaware of this achievement. In a poll CCF commissioned…
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Children’s Health Coverage on the Eve of the Affordable Care Act
Georgetown University Center for Children and Families researchers analyzed health insurance data from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey to get a closer look at children’s coverage trends. On the eve of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act coverage expansions, the authors found important lessons from the success the U.S. has had in covering children. The number of uninsured…
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Getting Into Gear for 2014: Findings from a 50-State Survey of Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost-Sharing Policies in Medicaid and CHIP, 2012-2013
As 2013 begins, implementation of the major provisions of the ACA, including its coverage expansions, is less than a year away. Following the Supreme Court ruling to uphold the ACA and the 2012 elections, efforts to prepare for 2014 are moving into high gear in many states. The majority of states are capitalizing on web-based…
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Breaking News – Arizona’s Governor Says ‘Yes’ to Extending Medicaid Coverage – Is This a Tipping Point?
In her State of the State address today, Governor Jan Brewer said that she will be asking the Arizona Legislature to move forward with an expansion of the Medicaid program for parents and childless adults to 133% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). Governor Brewer is proposing a provider assessment to pay for the state’s…
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What Was Medicaid Doing in a Foreign Policy Debate?
My oldest son was required to watch this week’s presidential debate and report back to his teacher on flawed logical reasoning by the candidates. I thought my husband, who is somewhat of a foreign policy wonk, would be on homework helper duty and I could just sit back and enjoy the show—after all, it was…
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Uninsured Children 2009-2011: Charting the Nation’s Progress
Georgetown University Center for Children and Families researchers analyzed health insurance data from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey to get a closer look at children’s coverage trends. The authors found that the nation continues to make steady progress covering children, despite no reduction in the number of children living in poverty. A strong commitment to…
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State Fact Sheets Highlight Importance of Medicaid Coverage for Children
By Ielnaz Kashefipour, American Academy of Pediatrics The American Academy of Pediatrics, in partnership with the Children’s Hospitals Association (formerly NACHRI), this week produced updated state-by-state fact sheets that explain the importance of the Medicaid program for children. These fact sheets are used in federal and state advocacy efforts to protect the Medicaid program from…
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Medicaid Coverage for Parents under the Affordable Care Act – State Fact Sheets
This issue brief presents national estimates of the number and characteristics of uninsured parents who would be eligible for Medicaid in 2014 according to whether they have child who is currently enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP coverage or an uninsured child who is eligible for Medicaid/CHIP but not enrolled. State-specific data are also provided on the ten…
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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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Performing Under Pressure: Annual Findings of a 50-State Survey of Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost-Sharing Policies in Medicaid and CHIP, 2011-2012
Amid ongoing state budget pressures, a requirement in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that states maintain eligibility in Medicaid and CHIP was central in preserving coverage during 2011. In addition, more than half of states (29) made improvements in their programs. Most of these improvements involved greater use of technology to boost program efficiency and…
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Health Care Reform Funding for School-Based Health Centers Helps Keep Students in School and Learning
By John Schlitt, National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC) Banner Health System and uninsured children in Phoenix, Arizona recently received good news from the federal government. Word came in December that Banner was among a select number of programs across the country that competed successfully for Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) federal school-based…
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UPDATE: Arizona – A KidsCare Band-Aid
By Martha Heberlein We’ve written before about Arizona’s response to the recession–substantial budget cuts and the only enrollment freeze in the nation in its CHIP program, KidsCare. Instituted almost two years ago, there are now 129,000 kids on the waiting list for access to affordable health coverage. A new (but somewhat familiar) proposal has emerged to…
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Despite Economic Challenges, Progress Continues: Children’s Health Insurance Coverage in the United States from 2008-2010
In this paper, health insurance data from the Census Bureau’s annual “American Community Survey” was analyzed in order to get a more accurate depiction of children’s coverage. Even though the number of children living in poverty has increased almost 19 percent over a three-year period, the number of children without health insurance declined 14 percent–…
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Waiver Watchers Alert: CMS decision protects AZ parents’ coverage; Budget cuts do not a waiver make
Another installment in the ongoing saga regarding Arizona’s efforts to rollback coverage for parents and childless adults occurred on October 7th when CMS sent the state a letter reviewing where things stand with the state’s Section 1115 waiver request. In January, Arizona became the first state in the nation to request a waiver of the…
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How Has Arizona’s CHIP Enrollment Freeze Impacted Kids?
The state of Arizona was hit especially hard by the recession and responded by imposing the largest spending cuts in the state’s history. Among these was a freeze in KidsCare, the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Arizona remains the only state with an enrollment freeze in place and a new report we just released…
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The Arizona KidsCare CHIP Enrollment Freeze: How Has it Impacted Enrollment and Families?
On December 21, 2009, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona imposed an enrollment freeze in the state’s CHIP program, KidsCare. It is currently the only state in the country with a freeze in place. As of July 15, 2011, there were over 108,000 children on the waiting list for KidsCare coverage, which continues to grow at…
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Fulfilling the Promise of 2014: Aligning and Simplifying Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment for Children and Parents
Simplification and alignment of policies for children in Medicaid and CHIP have helped states fill the gap in private insurance and achieve record levels of coverage for 90% of our nation’s children. These lessons are carried forward in the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of coverage through Medicaid and the Exchanges. The ACA envision a customer-friendly,…