Louisiana
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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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Report Suggests Improved Outreach and Enrollment Efforts Directed at Very Poor Parents Needed
As I was flying back from Atlanta the other night, I read a fascinating new paper by researchers at the Urban Institute (a team led by the esteemed Genevieve Kenney), which looks at adult uninsured rates and participation rates in Medicaid. In particular, the researchers examine how the number of uninsured parents and childless adults…
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Thanks to Improvements Made After Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is Better-Prepared for a Medicaid Enrollment Boost
By A.J. Custer Starting July 1st, low-income adults in Louisiana will gain health insurance benefits, as the state officially becomes the 31st state to expand Medicaid. Enrollment has already begun and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals predicts an estimated 375,000 people will enroll in Louisiana’s Medicaid program over the next year. The program…
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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.…
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Infographic: Southerners More Likely to be Poor, Uninsured and Live in a State that Denies Them Medicaid
A new infographic from the Kaiser Family Foundation this week lays out some of the ironies of the decision by many southern states not to accept federal money to expand Medicaid health coverage to their lowest-income citizens. With higher rates of poverty and adults more likely to be uninsured, the need for affordable coverage is…
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Updated Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility Thresholds Released
By Martha Heberlein CMS released new MAGI-based eligibility thresholds effective April 1, and plans to release updated eligibility thresholds once a quarter. The idea is to confirm with the states that the FFM is using the correct threshold for assessing/determining eligibility in the states. So each quarter, they’re surveying the states as to what they…
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ACA Promises Streamlined Medicaid/CHIP Renewals, After the First Round
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) envisions highly automated renewals for Medicaid and CHIP. With new eligibility systems capable of retrieving personal eligibility-related data from trusted sources, such as the state’s wage database, agencies should be able to renew coverage for most enrollees without requiring them to complete forms or submit paperwork. But first, state agencies…
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Many Southern States Miss Opportunity to Address Health Disparities
By Tara Mancini A new report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) indicates that a little more than half (53%) of uninsured people of color have family income at or below 138% and therefore should qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as the ACA originally intended. Yet, almost a third (30%) of…
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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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Census Shows Uninsured Rate Declines for Children; Poverty Up in Southern Region
The U.S. Census data released today held some good news on the health coverage of America’s children and families. While poverty remained unacceptably high, the rate of uninsured children continued to decline. The uninsured rate for children declined from 9.4 percent in 2011 to 8.9 percent in 2012. This is mainly due to the success…
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Tech Tuesday: CMS Option Provides States with a Powerful Outreach Tool
By Shelby Gonzales, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Connecting families to health coverage and other benefits requires comprehensive and strategic outreach. Getting people to sign up is hard work, and it often takes time to make measurable gains in enrollment. One strategy has been extremely effective in enrolling eligible children. Using information available from…
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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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Louisiana Shows States can Streamline Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment AND Achieve Low Eligibility Error Rates
By Stan Dorn, Urban Institute Sometimes people fear that streamlining Medicaid and CHIP enrollment and retention may increase error rates. Louisiana has once again shown, in the words of the Gershwin classic, that “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” On November 21, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the state’s 2011 Payment Error Rate…
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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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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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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 Double Benefit – More Kids Enrolled and Administrative Savings
We have long been fans of the enormous success that Louisiana has had in improving retention among children in Medicaid and CHIP through administrative renewals and ex parte. I mean, really, who wouldn’t be wowed by the fact that just 1% of children lose coverage at renewal for procedural reasons! Not to mention the low, low…
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Continuous Coverage – Critical for Chronic Conditions
By Tara Mancini Our Say Ahhh! audience is certainly aware of the benefits of implementing continuous coverage, namely, how it can improve health outcomes for beneficiaries while also decreasing administrative and utilization costs. As of January 1, 2012, 28 states offer 12-month continuous eligibility in their CHIP programs (23 in Medicaid). Alabama is one of…
