Florida
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Trading Kids’ Health for Political Favors?
MedPage Today Pediatricians in Florida and health experts elsewhere questioned whether politics played a role in the switching of 13,000 high-risk children from the state’s comprehensive Medicaid program to lesser plans that many physician don’t accept, CNN reported. … “These are the sickest and most vulnerable kids, and (changing their insurance) can mean life or death for…
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INTERACTIVE MAPS: Children Covered by Medicaid and CHIP by county, state or congressional district.
These maps show how many children are covered by Medicaid in each county and congressional district. Visit these links to view the maps, and to download handouts on your state’s coverage data: Percent of Children Covered by Medicaid/CHIP (congressional district) Percent of Children Covered by Medicaid/CHIP (county) Visit CCF’s State Resource Center for state-level data on health…
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Gains in Children’s Health Coverage at Risk if Bump in Funding Eliminated
Those of you at our annual conference in July are already familiar with the bump dance craze that took the world by storm in the summer of 1975. But ICYMI, there’s a new bump that’s all the rage these days – the increase in federal funding for CHIP. Starting in fiscal year 2016, states received…
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New Florida Legal Services Report Examines Financial Challenges to Health Care System
By Miriam Harmatz, Florida Legal Services My colleague, Charlotte Cassel, and I spend a lot of time explaining changes to Florida’s major supplemental payment program, the Low Income Pool (LIP) and how those changes impact individual counties. FLS Reports. Before we started this endeavor, I pulled out notes from training by iconic poverty and health…
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How One Florida Newspaper Went Beyond Reporting to Spur Original Research
(This blog was originally published by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.) By Maggie Clark, Sarasota Herald Tribune Some of the best ideas are the ones that initially sound the craziest. I was about four months in on my reporting on Florida’s Medicaid managed care program, and I was hitting a wall. I’d been…
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Advocates in Arizona and Florida Win Bulldog of Year Awards for Opening Doors to Coverage for Kids
Connecting with children’s advocates and health policy experts from across the country is the highlight of our annual conference for me. I am always inspired by the “doggedness” of our state partners to make children’s lives better. A few years ago, we started a tradition of opening the conference by presenting the “Bulldog of the…
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Florida Kids Face Dental Crisis
Herald-Tribune By: Maggie Clark Florida is ranked 50 out of 51 states in the number of children that are getting the necessary and preventive dental care services, even though across the nations these numbers have been going up for most sates. Therefore, children are facing lots of dental problems, especially those coming from low-income families.…
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Recommended Changes to the 2017 Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures
As I noted in a blog last year, CMS reviews the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures annually. Advising CMS’ quality activities is the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP), a public-private partnership convened by the National Quality Forum (NQF), a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, membership-based organization that works to catalyze improvements in health care. MAP is…
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Florida and Utah Remove 5-Year Wait for Legal Immigrant Children
July 1 will be a great day for children living in Florida and Utah as the five-year Medicaid/CHIP waiting period for legal immigrant children will be eliminated. Now 30 states and DC have accepted the Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) option passed into law as part of the reauthorization of CHIP in 2009. (Note:…
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Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care Program Has Considerable Room for Improvement
I’m here in Sarasota, Florida today to release our new study looking at the quality of care for the approximately two million kids receiving health care services through Florida’s Medicaid managed care program. The study was commissioned by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and supported by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. We appreciate their wonderful partnership on…
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How Is Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care Working for Children?
How is Florida’s Medicaid managed care working for children? To answer this question, we looked at existing data sources and also conducted a survey of pediatricians in Florida. Our results suggest there is considerable room for improvement in Medicaid managed care for Florida’s children.
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How Does Florida Perform on the Quality of Health Care for Children Enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP?
Since 2011, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released an “Annual Report on the Quality of Care for Children in Medicaid and CHIP.” The report includes data submitted by the states on the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures (child core set) and summarizes the results of the…
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Texas Put on Notice as Medicaid Waiver Extended by Federal CMS for 15 Months
Earlier this week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to the state of Texas extending the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver for 15 months with level funding through the end of 2017. The state of Texas promptly labelled the agreement a “big win” for Texas – but was it? Texas…
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How Cuts to Safety Net Hospitals Impact the Uninsured in a State that Rejected Medicaid Expansion Funding
by Miriam Harmatz, Florida Legal Services Much has been written—from blogs to briefs—documenting the tremendous positive impacts of Medicaid expansion. Less well-documented are the negative impacts that flow from rejecting expansion. Obviously, non-expansion states fail to reap the profound benefits of expansion. But they are not just failing to move forward with the expansion’s huge…
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Florida Children’s Health Expert Shares Insights on Major Turning Point for Immigrant Kids
By Diana Ragbeer, The Children’s Trust On Thursday, March 17, Governor Rick Scott signed HB 5101 into law, thereby lifting the five-year waiting period for lawfully residing immigrant children to receive subsidized CHIP and Medicaid through Florida KidCare. This makes Florida the 31st state to take advantage of the provision known as the Legal Immigrant Children’s…
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Research Shows that Utah and Florida’s “ICHIA Option” Will Improve Access to Health Coverage and Services For Lawfully Residing Immigrant Children
Last week, both the Utah and Florida legislatures passed laws that extend Medicaid and CHIP coverage to lawfully residing children who would otherwise have had to wait five years before becoming eligible to enroll. This is a big victory in two states with some of the highest child uninsurance rates in the country. Related Content…
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CHIP Bump Brings About Coverage Gains for Kids in Florida and Utah
Just a few hours ago, the Florida legislature passed its final bills of the session and included an extension of Medicaid and CHIP coverage to lawfully residing immigrant children who are currently excluded for five years. Known to many as the “ICHIA option”, this was a huge victory for kids in Florida (and their advocates…
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This Grandparent’s Day, Let’s Build a Brighter Future for Our Grandchildren
By Laura Brennaman, Florida CHAIN As a grandmother, nothing is more important to me than the health and well-being of my grandchildren. Health care coverage is essential to providing my grandchildren and all grandkids with the opportunity to reach their full potential. Health coverage not only provides our grandchildren with the care they need to…
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CHIP Increases Children’s Access to Dental Care and Reduces Their Unmet Dental Care Needs
By Sophia Duong Tooth decay still remains the most common chronic disease for children in the U.S. today. Progress has been made to address this problem, including a provision in CHIPRA that expanded dental coverage for all children enrolled in CHIP. CHIP has been a vital source of dental health coverage for low-to-middle income children.…
