Eligibility & Enrollment
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In August, Marketplace Enrollment Slowed Among Those Losing Medicaid Coverage During Unwinding
As readers of Say Ahhh! know, I have been tracking monthly data (here, here, here, and here) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on the number of people who were either previously enrolled in Medicaid or had experienced a denial or termination who then selected a marketplace plan. CMS has just issued…
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Report Finds Child Uninsured Rate Improved in 2022, Warns Progress Under Threat as Eligible Children Lose Coverage During Medicaid Unwinding
This week we were joined by Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst with Every Texan and Dr. Valerie Borum Smith, a pediatrician and President-Elect of the Texas Society of Pediatricians to release our annual report on child health coverage trends. Our report showed the number of uninsured children declined in 2022 to one of the…
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North Carolina and Hawaii Make 10: States Advancing Medicaid/CHIP Multi-Year Continuous Eligibility for Young Children
It’s hard to keep up with the rapid progress in the number of states seeking federal approval to adopt multi-year continuous coverage for children covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Since we last took stock, North Carolina and Hawaii have proposed 1115 waivers to adopt continuous eligibility for children from birth…
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What Does 12-month Continuous Eligibility for Children Mean for CHIP Pregnancy Coverage?
Several weeks ago, I blogged about the federal guidance CMS sent to states on the implementation of 12-month continuous enrollment (CE) for children starting on January 1, 2023, as required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (CAA). In the guidance, CMS provided details on how implementation of 12-month CE impacts the group of individuals…
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Update on Medicaid Unwinding and Marketplace Enrollment
I previously reported that according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), of the 715,000 Medicaid beneficiaries who lost Medicaid coverage in April due to unwinding of the Medicaid continuous coverage protection, a total of about 54,000 people or 7.5 percent — who were either previously enrolled in Medicaid in March…
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Legislative Roundup: Eight states now committed to multi-year continuous eligibility for young children as Colorado, Minnesota and Ohio pass new legislation
The unwinding continues to dramatically showcase children’s loss of health care despite the fact that most likely remain eligible. Amid the worse-than-expected disenrollments among children due to red tape and insufficient communication, one bright spot is that more states are seeking CMS approval to reduce administrative burden on families by adopting 2-to-5 year continuous eligibility…
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Research Update: It’s Simple—Medicaid Helps People Work
My colleagues have been analyzing the highly damaging Medicaid work reporting requirement provisions of the House-passed debt ceiling bill crafted by Speaker McCarthy, including how it would likely harm people with disabilities and parents. There is an overwhelming stack of evidence showing that work requirements are a terrible idea: they don’t actually improve employment rates,…
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Expedited CMS Approvals in Washington and Oregon Can Further Minimize Coverage Disruptions, Aid Unwinding
New CMS approvals in Oregon and Washington will protect health coverage for more children and families during this year’s consequential unwinding, minimizing coverage disruptions and easing transitions to new sources of health coverage. Oregon receives approval to ease coverage transitions for certain adults, allowing them to stay in Medicaid until they can transition to alternative…
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Children’s Marketplace Enrollment Increases Again, but Most Children Will Still be Eligible for Medicaid After Unwinding
When it comes to recent trends in children’s coverage, much attention has rightly focused on the significant child enrollment increases in Medicaid over the past few years due in large part to the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement. Although the Marketplaces cover far fewer children by comparison, child enrollment in Marketplace plans has increased substantially for…
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Unwinding Wednesday #17: It’s Imperative for States to Use the 2023 Federal Poverty Levels During the Unwinding
The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has released the 2023 federal poverty levels (FPL). As expected, there was a notable increase in the poverty threshold stemming from inflation that will help families keep pace with rising costs. On average, the FPLs rose by about 8 percent, ranging from 7.3…
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Webinar: Medicaid Continuous Eligibility for Children up to age 6 in Oregon
On September 28, CMS approved Oregon’s groundbreaking proposal to provide continuous eligibility (CE) in Medicaid and CHIP for children from birth to age 6 as a component of the state’s school readiness and health care transformation strategies. The approval also creates a two-year CE for all beneficiaries ages 6 and older, along with a number…
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Medicaid and CHIP Continuous Coverage for Children
States have the option under current law to provide 12 months of continuous health coverage for children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) so that children can maintain coverage throughout the year even as their family income fluctuates from month to month. Under this option, states allow a child to remain enrolled…
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What’s New for 2023 Marketplace Enrollment?
By Emma Walsh-Alker, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms The annual open enrollment period for marketplace coverage is right around the corner. There are many new policies impacting the marketplace in 2023, including an extension of enhanced financial assistance through the Inflation Reduction Act; a federal fix to the “family glitch” that will create…
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Child Uninsured Rate Declined During the Pandemic Thanks to Medicaid
New data from the American Community Survey (ACS) released today by the U.S. Census Bureau suggests that the continuous coverage provision of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (which prohibits states from disenrolling anyone involuntarily from Medicaid during the duration of the federal COVID-19 public health emergency), has resulted in the child uninsured rate stabilizing and…
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Proposed Eligibility Rule Simplifies Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Process for Children
In a continuing effort to strengthen Medicaid and access to affordable, quality health coverage, the Biden Administration has proposed a series of eligibility rule changes. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeks to streamline application and enrollment, improve retention rates, remove barriers specific to CHIP, and enhance program integrity. Eliminates enrollment barriers and benefit caps…
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CHIP: Serving America’s Children for 25 Years
In its 25-year history, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has established itself as a critical piece of the federal-state response to children’s health care needs. CHIP, signed into law on August 5, 1997, was created to build on the success of Medicaid by giving states the opportunity to receive enhanced federal matching funds to…
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New Urban Institute Analysis Underscores Importance of Continuous Medicaid Coverage Protection for Kids
A new brief out this week from The Urban Institute confirms what we have suspected — the Medicaid continuous coverage provision has halted the increase in uninsured children that we saw during the Trump years. (As SayAhhh! readers know, no one can be involuntarily disenrolled during the federally declared public health emergency as a consequence…
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The Latest on Child Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment During the Pandemic
CCF’s Aubrianna Osorio and Allie Corcoran are keeping tabs on child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP during the pandemic period. Below is the latest – from February 2020 to January 2022 child enrollment has increased by 14.4 percent nationwide. A few things jumped out at me: As is common, we are probably seeing “welcome mat”…
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New CMS Resource is a Helpful Summary of Requirements for Unwinding the Continuous Coverage Protection
Over the past year and a half, CMS has released a variety of guidance, slide decks, tools, templates, and other resources on the unwinding of the continuous coverage provision. After a while, it can be pretty daunting to keep up with everything. Thankfully, the agency made it easier to find these resources by posting all…
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More States Move to Expand Continuous Eligibility for Children and Adults in Medicaid
Waiver authorities granted through Section 1115 demonstrations are meant to be experiments that serve the objectives of the Medicaid program—namely, promoting access to health coverage. But what exactly does this look like? In some very welcome news, there has been a recent uptick in the number of states requesting to expand continuous eligibility through Section…
