Enrollment Assistance
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CMS Awards $48 Million in Outreach Funds for Children’s Coverage
Earlier this week, CMS announced that it was awarding $48 million in cooperative agreements to 39 organizations in 25 states to enroll eligible children in health coverage. Since 2009, CMS has awarded $210 million in funds to connect kids to coverage through various federal appropriation bills. Unfortunately, this latest round of grants was delayed as…
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Bracing for an ACA Enrollment Season Without Navigators: Risks for Consumers and the Market
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on July 10, 2018 that they would fund up to $10 million for Navigator programs in the 34 federally facilitated marketplace (FFM) states in 2018, a 60 percent cut from 2017 funding levels, and an over 80 percent cut from the program’s original funding. CMS is also encouraging applicants to…
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Trump Administration Strikes Another Blow to the ACA by Cutting Navigator Funding
In what seems an endless stream of administrative actions to undermine the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration has cut navigator funding from the 2016 level of $63 million to $37 million in 2017 to a meager $10 million for the upcoming fall (2018) open enrollment period. It also looks like the administration is trying…
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Why is NH Proposing to Replace Proven Electronic Citizenship Verification with Burdensome Medicaid Paperwork Requirements?
My home state of New Hampshire is proposing to add burdensome paperwork requirements for U.S. citizens to prove eligibility for Medicaid. That’s one of the requests they are making in the Medicaid waiver proposal that is up for state comment before the end of the week. This is perplexing because the state and federal governments…
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ACA Marketplace Sign-Ups Outpacing Last Year, Despite Sabotage
The 2018 open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace coverage is off to a fast start, with over 600,000 customers selecting plans in the first four days compared to 416,000 during the first five days of last year’s period. We don’t yet know what’s driving the increase and how signups during the open…
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Have Questions on Private Health Insurance? Check out Latest Navigator Resource Guide
It’s been a bumpy road for the Affordable Care Act these last few months, but starting November 1, the marketplace is open for enrollment. As the fifth open enrollment season is upon us, we at CHIR have launched our updated and improved Navigator Resource Guide, made possible thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.…
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Reduced Funding for Navigators and Public Education Could Harm Nation’s Success in Covering Kids
No smart business stops investing in marketing and customer support when sales are down. But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is doing by cutting funding for advertising and navigators. The recent announcement that CMS is decreasing Healthcare.gov’s direct marketing budget by 90 percent and reducing funding to navigator entities by almost half is shortsighted for…
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Back-to-School Season Focuses Attention on Need to Connect More Kids with Health Coverage
Children’s health advocates have their hands full trying to preserve Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for America’s children, but they can’t slow down on their efforts to connect more kids with coverage. Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are unenrolled because their parents aren’t aware of the option…
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What We’ve Learned: Helping Remaining Uninsured Obtain Health Coverage
By Benjamin Kerman and Annmarie Benedict, The Atlantic Philanthropies It’s been almost three years since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into full effect. During that time, 13 million people gained health insurance coverage. With open enrollment starting tomorrow, communities have another opportunity to extend the ACA’s benefits to the estimated 29 million Americans who…
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New Marketplace Research: Off-Marketplace Consumers and How Marketplace Enrollees Fare in Expansion and Nonexpansion States
Two new reports released this month on the Marketplace sparked our interest at CCF. The first, a brief from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, examined the population currently purchasing off-marketplace coverage. The authors estimate that about 6.9 million individuals purchase health insurance in the off-Marketplace individual market. About 2.5 million…
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Creating More Direct Pathways to Health Coverage in Colorado
By Stephanie Brooks, Colorado Covering Kids and Families Colorado Covering Kids and Families’ (CKF) new report, Colorado’s Health Insurance Affordability Programs: Goals to Prioritize and Options to Consider to Create a More Direct Pathway to Health Coverage, is the first in Colorado to document and examine the eligibility and enrollment process in health coverage programs…
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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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How the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Seek to Improve Network Adequacy and Access to Services
Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed up with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs that unpack the new Medicaid/CHIP managed care regulations. Three briefs in the series have been released already: Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Through a Children’s Lens, Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care…
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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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How the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Improve Consumer Information
As my colleague, Kelly Whitener, announced last week, thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs to unpack the new Medicaid/CHIP managed care regulations. The first brief, Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Regulations Through a Children’s Lens, was published last week.…
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Six States Hold the Key to Reaching Nearly Half of the Uninsured Kids Who Are Eligible for Medicaid/CHIP
By Genevieve M. Kenney, Jennifer Haley, Clare Pan, Victoria Lynch, and Matthew Buettgens, Urban Institute, Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation We recently examined how children’s coverage fared during the first year of implementation of the major coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We found increases in participation in Medicaid and the Children’s…
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HHS Study Shows Benefits of Shopping and Subsidies, but Costs Still a Concern
By Sean Miskell As insurers selling on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Marketplaces begin to file their 2017 rates with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), concerns over proposed increases will once again emerge. But a report released by the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) demonstrates that behind the headlines…
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Missouri’s Health Reform Assisters Triumph In Court
By Emily Curran, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms Health reform advocates experienced a win last month, when a federal court in Missouri struck down three sections of a recently enacted state law that interfered with the ability of consumer assistance personnel to help Missourians understand their health insurance options and enroll in coverage.…
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Report Provides (Some) Insight on Network Adequacy as New Regulations Promise More
By Sean Miskell As more Americans gain coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplaces, attention is increasingly turning to the quality of this coverage, especially concerning the adequacy of the provider networks available under these plans. Questions about the scope of networks for plans sold through the Marketplace are important with regard to access…
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FAQ: Health Marketplace Tax Penalties, Exemptions, Reconciliation, and Special Enrollment Periods
By Tricia Brooks, Sandy Ahn, Sabrina Corlette, and JoAnn Volk, this was originally posted March 9, 2015 under the title “Confused about What Happens at Tax Time? FAQs on Penalties, Exemptions, Reconciliation, and SEPs“. As part of our Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded work in providing technical assistance to consumer assisters in five states, we…
