Florida
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Florida’s Medicaid Choice Slides
View the report here. View the press release here. Georgetown University Health Policy Institute researchers estimate that 800,000 to 1.3 million uninsured Floridians would gain health coverage with no net cost to the state if Florida chose to exercise the option to extend Medicaid coverage to residents with incomes at or below 133% FPL as provided…
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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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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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Holding Insurers Accountable: Should We Add an MLR to Medicaid?
A hot issue in many states today is whether or not to move more Medicaid beneficiaries, and often very vulnerable beneficiaries, into managed care. Indeed, many managed care companies are interested in getting or keeping a foot in the Medicaid market given the expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014. And many, though not all, states are…
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Taking Stock of Important Milestones as ACA Turns Two
By Kevin Lucia, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Studies When a child turns two, it’s natural to take stock of all the milestones they have achieved such as first steps, first words and first solid foods. Some parents are even organized enough to document all these achievements in a baby book. …
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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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Good News for Florida’s Kids: The State’s Attempt to Charge Unaffordable Medicaid Premiums Won’t Go Forward
Friday was a good day for Florida’s kids. The federal government indicated that the state would not be allowed to proceed with a proposal, passed by the legislature last spring, to charge all Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in managed care plans $10 a month regardless of income or age. It is important to note that much…
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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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Proposed Medicaid Premiums Challenge Coverage for Florida’s Children and Parents
Florida’s proposed changes to its Medicaid program include a requirement for nearly all Medicaid beneficiaries, including children, who are enrolled in managed-care plans to pay a $10 monthly premium as a condition for Medicaid eligibility. This could result in 800,000 Florida children and parents – the majority of them children in very-low-income families –leaving Florida…
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Looking Ahead to 2012, What Changes Are In Store for Florida’s Medicaid Program?
Medicaid is a critical part of Florida’s health care system. It covers 3.1 million people in the state, the majority of whom are children. In 2006, a five-year pilot program that replaced traditional Medicaid with an unusual managed-care model and other features that required a Section 1115 waiver from the federal government. In 2012, there…
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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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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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Medicaid and its Role for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN): A Family Perspective
The nation’s children have a lot at stake in the ongoing federal and state level debates over Medicaid’s role in deficit reduction efforts. Children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) are most vulnerable to Medicaid cuts because so many rely on it. Approximately 14% (10.2 million) of children meet the criteria of having…
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Florida Medicaid Transformation: Bad Policy & Bad Politics
Governor Rick Scott has now officially set in motion an ill-advised transformation of Florida’s Medicaid program that will place the health care of most Florida Medicaid beneficiaries into the hands of for-profit companies. The new law expands a managed care pilot program operating in five counties under a Section 1115 federal waiver. In moving ahead…
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CMS Asks Florida ‘Where’s the Beef’? (Do States Need a Waiver to do Managed Care?)
Last week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent a letter to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration in response to the state’s request for waiver authority to expand managed care statewide. CMS responded by saying that their Medicaid waiver extension request cannot be granted because it lacks a specific plan. The state’s…
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Understanding Florida Medicaid Today And the Impact of Federal Health Care Reform
Sound information on Florida’s Medicaid program is especially timely because of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which will move more low-income people into Medicaid by expanding eligibility levels in 2014. The highly politicized nature of the debate about Medicaid and health reform has lead to some exaggerated state estimates of Florida’s cost…