California
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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…
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Video Advocacy from Coast to Coast
By Adam Searing, North Carolina Justice Center Editor’s Note: As many of you who attended our recent conference know, our friends at NC Justice Center have hit the road to promote the use of video advocacy among advocates across the country. Adam Searing returns to Say Ahh! to share the latest and greatest. Be sure…
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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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Medicaid Coverage for Parents under the Affordable Care Act
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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Why Kids’ Advocates Should Pay Attention to SHOP
By Kathleen Hamilton, The Children’s Partnership One of the first and most interesting questions posed by the California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) to its Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) stakeholder work group was “who is the SHOP consumer?” Early discussions clearly revealed a fundamental assumption that the “consumer” in SHOP was the employer. As…
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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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A New Online Path to Children’s Health Care Coverage
Gene Lewit, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Living in Silicon Valley, I am used to reading about new tech wonders every day. In fact, today, we use the internet to do many things we used to do in person, by snailmail or on the telephone. This trend is encouraged by new technology, but has…
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Keeping Care Affordable: CMS Stands up for California Kids
By Michael Odeh, Children Now Earlier this month the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made an important ruling that truly embraces the “AFFORDABLE” in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Health care services and economics research over the past four decades has clearly shown that unaffordable cost-sharing in health care can be a…
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New Study Examines the Impact of Premiums on Enrollment
In the last year, we’ve examined the potential impact of proposed premium changes in Florida and Wisconsin, but a new study in Health Affairs provides some real-world data on what actually happens when premiums rise (not that we in any way condone experiments in children’s coverage of this sort). Healthy Kids in Los Angeles County is…
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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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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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A Compass for America’s Health Care Navigators
By Suzie Shupe, California Coverage & Health Initiatives The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance exchange marketplaces offer the promise of connecting millions of uninsured Americans with the health coverage and care they need. And by strengthening Medicaid, millions more will be able to get care. It is an historic opportunity, but also an unprecedented…
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Fuzzy Math: Treasury Department says kids don’t count when determining whether family insurance is affordable?
By Kristen Golden Testa, The Children’s Partnership Since when is 14,000 no different than 5,000? When the U.S. Treasury Department estimates the affordability of a family’s health insurance. If it goes uncorrected, their fuzzy math may deny affordable health coverage to 270,000 Californians–122,000 of whom are children. While premiums continue to rise across the board,…
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11 Tips to Help Children Get Enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP
By Judy Darnell, United Ways of California One of United Ways of California’s goals is to improve the health of children and adults. We know that a lack of health care coverage often means that primary care is an unattainable luxury. Yet primary care is so important in preventing or treating illness before it becomes…
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Using Mobile Phones to Help Families Access Vital Medicaid Coverage
By Lisa Han, The Childrens Partnership Recent data shows that people of color and low-income populations are adopting mobile technology at a rapid pace and are increasingly using mobile tools to access the Internet. These tools enable new ways of interacting with the government and enrolling in public services. Instead of standing in line at…
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National Groups Oppose CA Request to Circumvent Cost-Sharing Protections
Cost-sharing in the private insurance model was intended to encourage consumers to use services prudently, however, the application of increased cost-sharing for those enrolled in Medicaid often simply forces low-income individuals to go without medically necessary care. For that reason, federal legal protections were put in place to protect low-income people from being overburdened with…
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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,…
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Keeping on Track: California Continues to Move Forward on Health Insurance Exchange
(Editor’s Note: In an effort to keep our readers up to speed on what’s happening on the development of state-based health insurance exchanges, we are checking in periodically with states that are moving forward. This month, we visit our friends in sunny California.) By Nicette Short (Children Now) and Kathleen Hamilton (The Children’s Partnership) on…