Financing

Financing

An Update on State Fiscal Relief: Momentum is Building

By Jocelyn Guyer The pressure to extend the temporary increase in the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) for Medicaid included in last year’s stimulus bill is building. Widely credited with helping states through one of the worst fiscal crises on record, the provision also has been vital in stabilizing Medicaid coverage for children and others […]

Backlogs Put Children’s Health Coverage at Risk

By Gary Brunk President & CEO, Kansas Action for Children “I just couldn’t believe the state would cut personnel on a program that’s for kids,” commented Harold Stultz to a reporter from the CBS affiliate in Wichita, Kansas.  According to a local television news report, Harold’s 12-year-old son Keenan had injured his knee during a […]

FMAP – A Four-Letter Acronym that Inspires Controversy

By Martha Heberlein As a shared federal-state program, the distribution of financing in Medicaid has long been an area of debate. Whenever changes in the program are discussed (or as in the debate over the stimulus package, increases are considered), distributional questions come up. How much should the federal government pay versus the states? How […]

Building on a Solid Foundation: Medicaid’s Role in a Reformed Health Care System

By Martha Heberlein Health care reform is once again a front and center issue – at the White House and in the halls of Congress, in state capitols and corporate boardrooms, and around kitchen tables across America. Covering the uninsured, reigning in health care costs, and obtaining better quality and value for our health care […]