Financing
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
