Financing
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The Ryan Budget Resolution – Implications for Children’s Coverage
By Jocelyn Guyer Yesterday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a lopsided budget plan that harms the most vulnerable and protects the most secure. It would radically alter Medicaid and shift costs to the states by changing Medicaid to a block grant and deeply slashing federal funding for the program by $771 billion…
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Using CHIPRA Bonus Payments in Advocacy
Jon Gould, Children’s Alliance While celebrating the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act last month, I couldn’t help but think how vital CHIPRA’s passage was a year before the ACA – in February 2009. With President Obama’s signature on the five-year children’s health reauthorization law came a powerful new tool in our advocacy toolbox: annual…
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A Closer Look at Florida’s Medicaid Program
The Florida legislature is in the midst of a hot and heavy debate about the future of the state’s Medicaid program. One of the key questions being discussed is whether or not to expand the state’s controversial Section 1115 Medicaid waiver across the state and across all populations. The waiver is coming to the end…
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Cuts to Medicaid will Ultimately Hurt Business
By Jim Roche, President, Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire For years, business owners and managers have cited the rising cost of health care and health insurance as their top challenge, after the health of the economy. And for years, the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire has tried to do its part…
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Senator Stands Up for Medicaid
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care. Amid the larger scuffle on budget-cutting this year, some in Congress are looking for convenient excuses to roll back programs designed to give low-income Americans a hand up in life. Proposed cuts from the House are a direct attack on working Americans –…
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As ACA Approaches 1st Birthday, Legislative Activity Heats Up
Both the Senate Finance Committee and Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee held hearings this week on aspects of the Affordable Care Act. Here’s a quick summary of those hearings and other developments in Congress. In the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Secretary Sebelius did a good job of responding to criticism of the ACA by…
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Medicaid and State Budgets: Looking at the Facts
Medicaid continues to make up a large share of state budgets, but its role is far more nuanced than is frequently portrayed. This series of fact sheets is designed to provide a short overview of the role of Medicaid in state budgets, the sources of spending, and details on how much each state spends. The…
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New Issue Brief Looks at Medicaid’s Role in State Budgets
By Martha Heberlein State budgets continue to be a hot issue. As states are grappling with depressed revenues and searching for ways to balance their budgets, some have turned to Medicaid to help fill the gap. But, as with most debates about how much things cost and how money is spent, some of the arguments don’t…
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What Conservative States Want: Health Care for Children
By Christine Sinatra, Texans Care for Children A couple of years ago in a seminar for children’s health advocates, a pollster shared some promising new national data: about 9 out of 10 voters said they support public children’s health insurance programs. Up went the hands of those of us in the room from the red…
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West Virginia to Implement CHIP Expansion
By Martha Heberlein Amid all the turmoil surrounding “flexibility” in Medicaid and ongoing state budget crises (not to mention the never-ending budget debate in DC), a move forward for children’s coverage in West Virginia has gone largely unnoticed. In 2006, the state enacted an expansion from 200% to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)…
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What did the President Just Say??
On Monday, while addressing the nation’s Governors, President Obama endorsed bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Wyden, Brown and Landrieu that moves up the date that states can apply for so-called “State Innovation Waivers” from 2017 to 2014. Waivers come in many shapes and sizes and can be quite confusing. (Just watch Members of the House…
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House Energy and Commerce Hearing Light on Substance
By Jocelyn Guyer The new Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee invited three of the nation’s governors to testify at a hearing entitled “The Consequences of Obamacare: Impact on Medicaid and State Health Care Reform.” As the title of the hearing suggests, the event was heavy on posturing and politics and light on illuminating…
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Which States Are So Eager for “Flexibility”?
By Martha Heberlein Back in January, a group of current and former Republican Governors sent a letter to Congress asking for “flexibility” to ignore the stability protections in the Affordable Care Act. Today, the Energy and Commerce Committee is holding a hearing that will focus, in part, on this request. Let’s look a little more closely…
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MEDICAID MATTERS: Return of the Medicaid Block-Granting Debate
The discussion of block-granting Medicaid has returned to the national health policy stage. This weekend, at the annual winter meeting of the nation’s governors, various governors resurrected the issue arguing that states need more flexibility than they currently have to fit their state’s budget and health care needs. Because of the populations affected and the…
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Medicaid Block Grant Would Leave States Holding the Bag
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities In a previous post, I explained why block-granting Medicaid or otherwise capping its funding is no solution to rising costs. It’s also a really bad deal for states, as a report CBPP released on February 23 explains. A block grant would shift significant financial risks and costs…
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Tapping State Ingenuity to Streamline Access to Benefits
Today, families in need of child care assistance, health coverage and food assistance often have to apply to three different agencies, providing pretty much the same information and documents to each of them. All the while, different eligibility workers handle this information to determine the family’s eligibility separately for each program. Placing such redundant and…
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Health Insurance for 1 in 3 Put at Risk if Stability Protections Removed
By Jocelyn Guyer and Martha Heberlein We’ve just finished up a new report that looks at what might happen if the Medicaid and CHIP stability protections are rescinded, opening the door for states to cut off coverage for kids, seniors, people with disabilities, and other low-income adults. It isn’t a pretty picture – about a…
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How did Children Fare in President’s Budget?
(Ed. Note: Budget season kicked off last week with the release of President Obama’s FY 2012 budget proposal. The document outlines the President’s vision for the future by setting funding priorities. Say Ahhh! asked Bruce Lesley of First Focus to share his thoughts on how children and families fared in the President’s budget.) By Bruce…
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Insight from CBPP on Controversial Amendment to CR
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released an analysis of the impact of an amendment to the continuing resolution that would bar the use of funds to implement any aspect of the Affordable Care Act. The amendment is being offered by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) to the continuing resolution now on the House floor.…
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Update on Efforts to Slow Implementation of Affordable Care Act
In early January the House of Representatives passed, with much fanfare, H.R. 2, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Senate Republicans attempted to attach this measure to an airport construction bill but that effort was soundly defeated and it is unlikely that H.R. 2 will be passed by the…