Financing

Holding Steady: Medicaid Fiscal Relief and its Implications for America’s Children and Families

In the current recession, Medicaid has become more important than ever, offering coverage to an additional 2 million children. This issue brief explores the role that Medicaid fiscal relief has played in sustaining affordable coverage options for children and their families during these uncertain times, and the risk of unraveling the progress that has been […]

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 […]

Clawback Provision Brings More Fiscal Relief to States

You know those Old Westerns where the hero rides in at that last minute to save the day. That’s what last week’s “clawback” reduction announcement must have felt like to many states trying to maintain their Medicaid programs in the wake of increased need and reduced revenues caused by the recession.

Cathy Hope

February 24, 2010

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 […]

Guest

February 18, 2010

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 […]