California
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Children’s Health Will Pay the Price If Federal Costs Are Shifted to the States
By Kristen Golden Testa, The Children’s Partnership and 100% Campaign As policy makers in Washington DC work to reduce the federal budget deficit, we should all be watching carefully where the budget ax swings, especially when it nears our children. Luckily, California is raising the red flag when proposed federal cuts result in more state…
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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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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…
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CMS Continues to Invest in and Support Innovation and State Flexibility in Medicaid
Regardless of who pays for health care services, the U.S. health care system is in desperate need of dramatic change to make it the best it can be – affordable, sustainable and focused on outcomes – without leaving millions of Americans, mostly low-income or those with existing health conditions, uninsured. The good news is that…
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Early Wins for Children on the One-Year Anniversary of Health Reform: Family Perspectives
March 23, 2011 marked the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). There have been early wins for children and their families, even though many of the major provisions do not go into effect until January 2014. This issue brief highlights families from across the country whose children have personally been…
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Medicaid and State Budgets: Looking at the Facts
Medicaid continues to make up a large share of state budgets, but its role is far more nuanced than is frequently portrayed. This series of fact sheets is designed to provide a short overview of the role of Medicaid in state budgets, the sources of spending, and details on how much each state spends. The…
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New Tools for New Times: Using Cell Phones to Help Families Enroll and Stay Enrolled in Health Insurance
Mobile Technology: Smart Tools to Increase Participation in Health Coverage.
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Eliminating Medicaid and CHIP Stability Provisions (MoE): What’s at Stake for Children and Families
The stability in Medicaid and CHIP can be directly attributed to the short-term fiscal relief and the federal requirements that states maintain their eligibility rules and enrollment procedures until broader health reform is implemented. If the stability provisions are rescinded, states could eliminate Medicaid for anyone who is covered at state option, as well as…
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Getting To the Finish Line: Investments in State-Based Advocacy Show Real Returns in Covering Uninsured Children
By Liane Wong and Eugene Lewit, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Even though last week seemed like it was all about the run-up to the Super Bowl, many of us in the nation had another cause to celebrate. February 4, 2011 was the second anniversary of the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program…
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Filling Budget Gaps in Medicaid
With the opening of state legislative sessions, we are beginning to see how states are proposing to deal with ongoing shortfalls in state revenues coupled with the loss of additional federal financial support for Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). There is no dispute that states will continue to face difficult budget…
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Holding Steady, Looking Ahead: Annual Findings of a 50-State Survey of Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost Sharing Practices in Medicaid and CHIP, 2010-2011
Over the past year, as the nation’s attention was focused on the country’s economic problems and the debate over the passage of broader health care reform, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) continued to play their vital role of providing coverage to millions of people who otherwise lack affordable coverage options. In 2010,…
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Insurers Revisit Decision to Abandon Child-Only Policies in California
By Jocelyn Guyer At CCF, things are starting to get very quiet as the Holiday Break approaches and I hadn’t planned on doing any more blogs this week, but this story from the Los Angeles Times is well worth highlighting. As a result of the fantastic work of California advocates and their allies in state government,…
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Rate Review: States Can Help Make Health Insurance More Affordable
Thirty-nine percent increase in California. Fifty-six percent increase in Michigan. Forty-seven percent increase in Connecticut. Twenty-one percent increase in New Mexico. In recent years consumers have faced unprecedented hikes in their health insurance premiums. In many cases, these hikes are driven by the increasing costs of medical care. But what happens when an insurance company…
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Washington State Insurance Commissioner Stands Up for Kids
“They can’t say children, just because of their age, can’t be insured. So today I am ordering Regence to once more offer insurance coverage for children.” With those words, Washington State’s Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler, stood up for children and ordered Regence Blue Shield to “cease and desist” from eliminating its child-only policies. Regence is one…
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Medicaid and CHIP Don’t Exclude Sick Kids
As states continue to grapple with insurance companies ceasing to write child-only insurance policies now that they are required to cover kids with pre-existing conditions, we are reminded of one simple fact – Medicaid and CHIP don’t exclude sick kids. These cost-effective public programs have long been a lifeline for low-income children, and for children…
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In Sickness and in Health: Are Insurers Breaking their Vow to Cover Kids with Pre-existing Conditions?
The wedding date for most provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may be January 1, 2014 but we’re celebrating the engagement tomorrow, September 23, 2010, when a number of insurance market reforms go into effect for new plans. These early wins for children and families include the end of insurance industry discrimination against children with…
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California is Blazing a Trail on Establishing Health Insurance Exchange Under ACA
By Mike Odeh (Children Now) and Kristen Golden Testa (The Children’s Partnership) with the 100% Campaign And we’re off! Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is officially underway! Less than six months after Congress passed the ACA, California has blazed the trail as the first state in the nation to create a statewide Health Insurance…
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Children in Health Reform: Perspective from a California Leader
Wendy Lazarus, Founder and Co-President, The Children’s Partnership As the health reform debate in Congress moves further forward than it ever has before, the potential real-world impacts on children and families are becoming clearer. Even from 3,000 miles away, those of us in California – home of the nation’s largest and hugely successful CHIP program…
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Enrollment Reopens in California’s CHIP Program
Just two months after freezing enrollment in the Healthy Families Program and initiating a waitlist, enrollment has reopened in California Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). A budget shortfall of just under $200 million has been plugged by a generous contribution from the state’s First Five Commission, increased family cost-sharing, and a new premium tax on…