California
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California Moving Toward Health Coverage for All Kids, Regardless of Immigration Status
While I was in Oakland, California meeting with child health advocates on Tuesday, we received great news about a big step forward for kids (no, it was not that the Oakland Warriors won the NBA playoffs!). State legislative leaders and the Governor announced a budget agreement that included a commitment to expand health coverage to…
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California Moves to Cover All Children Regardless of Immigration Status Lessons From County Programs Paved the Way
By Gene Lewit On Tuesday in California, legislative leaders and the Governor agreed on a 2015-16 budget bill that would allow all otherwise-eligible children to enroll in the state’s Medicaid program, regardless of their immigration status. The agreement includes $40 million in funding for children’s coverage that would begin in May 2016. An estimated 170,000…
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Serious Enrollment Gap for Limited English Proficient Californians
If you’re like me, you’re impatiently awaiting more data so that you can understand how immigrant families—many eligible for subsidies for health insurance for the first time—faired in open enrollment. A new paper from the Greenlining Institute, identifies major gaps in enrollment for immigrant communities and some ways to close them. In addition to using…
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How Are We Really Doing on Enrollment in California? Good Data Reporting Will Help Us Find Out
By Kristen Golden Testa, The Children’s Partnership California’s basic enrollment numbers coming out of the first open enrollment period under ACA are quite astounding: about 1.4 million Californians enrolled in Covered California, our state-based marketplace, and 1.9 million enrolled in Medi-Cal, for a whopping total of more than 3 million enrolled. But what’s going on…
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It Takes Time to Reduce Emergency Room Use
By Tara Mancini Last month, another round of results were released by the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (OHIE). The examination found that emergency department (ED) use increased by 40 percent among those who were enrolled in Medicaid compared to the control group. The results raised an important and obvious question: what would ED usage look…
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SNAP! And 153,000 California Children Can Get No-Cost Health Insurance Without an Application
By Kristen Golden Testa, The Children’s Partnership Imagine your infant has a high fever and you want to bring her to the doctor but don’t have health insurance. Or your young child can’t concentrate at school due to a tooth ache and you can’t afford to go to the dentist without coverage. Now imagine, one…
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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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Kaiser Report Finds More Than 5 Million Will Fall Into Coverage Gap Created by States Failing to Expand Medicaid
A federally-funded Medicaid option for more uninsured adults is an important cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act, however, an estimated 5,161,820 uninsured individuals will be left behind because they live in states that have not yet accepted the Medicaid expansion option. Those who fall into the gap earn too much to qualify under their state’s…
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What Can States Do to Ensure Insurers Don’t Limit Consumer Choice?
This morning, the New York Times ran a front page story headlined: “Lower Premiums to Come at Cost of Fewer Choices“. While I feel for the editors that have to explain such a complex topic in half the characters of a tweet, that headline will certainly trigger a chorus of “I told you so’s” from…
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Texas, Florida & California are Home to 37% of Eligible but Uninsured Kids
Today, the Urban Institute released an update to last year’s report on Medicaid/CHIP participation rates for children. Since 2008, Medicaid/CHIP participation rates have increased by 5.5 percentage points, from 81.7% in 2008 to 87.2% in 2011. Statistically significant increases have taken place in each of the last three years. States have had great success…
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When One Young Person’s Life Took a Detour, the ACA Provided Help Along the Way
By JoAnn Volk, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms In the spring of 2011, the University of California Santa Cruz senior was sure he was so tired because he wasn’t taking care of himself – not unusual for a busy student organizer winding up his final year in college. But when his neck started swelling,…
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Outreach Grant Will Help California Advocates Connect More Kids to Coverage
By Suzie Shupe and Edgar Aguilar, California Coverage and Health Initiatives California is the most populous state in the union and home to more than 13 percent of the nation’s uninsured children. Since coverage is essential for making sure children reach their full potential, California Coverage & Health Initiatives (CCHI) is honored to receive a…
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Know Your Audience: Lessons for Online Paths to Coverage
Read the latest Mathematica evaluation of California’s web-based application system. Gene Lewit, David and Lucile Packard Foundation Enrolling almost 30 million Americans in health coverage starting January 1, 2014, is the sort of thing that can keep people up at night. It’s a daunting task, which the Affordable Care Act (ACA) sought to make easier…
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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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CMS Announces 2013 Plans for Connecting Kids to Coverage
CMS has announced plans for continuing its efforts to engage states and stakeholders in its “Connecting Kids to Coverage” Campaign. The re-energized outreach and marketing campaign will include new toolkits, trainings/webinars, organizational and corporate partnership outreach support, earned media support and expertise in reaching key audiences. While efforts will be ongoing, the campaign will also…
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More Children Have Health Insurance Thanks to Medicaid, CHIP and ACA
Today we released a report with some encouraging news for America’s children and families. Our report found that despite the fact that childhood poverty remained high, the number of uninsured children declined last year. This builds on the good news on young adult coverage gains reported in September. The Affordable Care Act was behind the young…
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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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Lack of Dental Care Poses Health Risk to Children
By Tara Mancini Dental cavities are the most prevalent chronic disease among children. Many children are not able to obtain the dental care they need due to cost barriers, a shortage of dental health professionals in their area or for other reasons. According to an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, as many as 4.6 million…